


High Glow

by catherinewestwood



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006), The L Word
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 07:32:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 22,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8740513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catherinewestwood/pseuds/catherinewestwood
Summary: Miranda Priestly and Andrea Sachs duck and parry, and with each interaction, reveal more of themselves to each other. Until a newcomer from LA arrives on the scene, and changes everything. Suddenly old histories come raging back to the forefront, and new alliances are forged in a way no one could have predicted. Will good intentions be enough to overcome past failures, or are some journeys better left uncharted?





	1. Chapter 1

 

When you first moved to New York, and started that job, you developed a heretofore unknown level of love and hate with coffee shops. In what little spare time you had, you yearned to find a coffee-shop-esque space to let your thoughts wander.

Since you were in New York, that should not have been hard. Yet it was, because it was New York, and because Starbucks had apparently colonized the entire damn city.

So on a cold, rainy autumn afternoon, looking for an awning to protect you from the downpour, you stumbled into Antigone’s coffee shop.

That is how things happened back then; surprises around every corner, and a belief that there are indeed happy accidents. 

When, a month later, you are somehow at a swanky journalism dinner as your editor’s chaperone, because he’s an old bachelor who needs a lion tamer on hand, you turn around and are introduced to your former boss.

You’ve heard of descriptions of a heart attack, and you realize, in slow motion, that this is what one must feel like.

Or, rather, you would realize that if it weren’t for the blood rushing through your ears, your vision blurring and then clearing, your arms going numb, and your mouth falling open from the automatic need to draw breath since your nose has quit at that job.

In a matter of seconds, the world floats around Miranda Priestly and then re-forms itself, somehow brighter, sharper, and you can barely stand.

But societal niceties, like the patriarchy, have been drilled into you, and your body moves on instinct.

The voice you hear is your own, and you are pleased that it does not tremble like the capillaries in your heart. “Miranda, it’s wonderful to see you.”

Her smile, unlike what you expected, is not supercilious. “Is it? It’s so rare to hear that from people around me.”

Oh, wow. She’s going to joke with you right off the bat? What had happened to the terror of Runway in Andrea’s absence? Had Miranda been replaced by a pod person?

So Andrea only smiled in response, and managed to say as honestly as she could. “Well, I mean it. It really is great to see you.”

Miranda narrowed her eyes, but her smile didn’t fade. “I almost believed you the first time, Andrea. But if you repeat yourself, I might say that you’re trying too hard.”

A grin split Andrea’s face, and she realized that those capillaries squeezing her heart were not trying to make her pass out but instead attempting to convey something very important: the beginning of something tremendous.


	2. In A World Where Not Much Ever Seems To Last Long

It’s been two weeks since the opening, and The Post has declared The Republic the hottest new place to be seen. Well, you’ve seen it, and you can make no sense of what is going on.

Lily, bless her heart, has made no secret of her continued reservations.

_“All I’m saying is, even by her insane standards, isn’t this bizarre?”_

_You sigh. “Of course! But it’s not like I can just ask her what’s up.”_

_“Why not?”_

_“Because…”_

_“Oh! I see now, Andy. That makes total sense! Because!”_

_You bite back a retort, and pray for patience with your oldest friend. “Because, Lily, you never ask Miranda anything.”_

_“What?”_

_“That was the rule when I worked for her.”_

_“Ding, ding, ding, Andy! You don’t work for her anymore.”_

_“I think I’m always going to have that mindset when I’m around her. No matter how hard I try to move beyond that.”_

_“So, what? Now you just go whenever she calls? You haven’t moved on at all!”_

_“You sound as if I were in a relationship with her.”_

_There’s a protracted silence to this declaration of yours, and it catches up to you a moment too late._

_Lily’s tone is very pointed now. “’Relationship’?”_

_You do your best to mitigate the damage. “You know what I mean.”_

_“Do I?”_

_“Yes, Lily, I meant a working relationship.”_

_“This doesn’t sound like a professional liaison, Andy.”_

_“You don’t know Miranda. Nothing about her is ‘normal.’”_

_“Do you have a plan?”_

_“For what?”_

_“For what you’re going to do! Or are you just going to react every time she snaps her fingers?”_

_That mental image does nothing to calm your nerves. And you blush. “I can’t figure her out. I thought I had a handle on her, but now I’m not sure at all. I guess I’ll play along for awhile. I’m not losing anything in the meantime.”_

_“Except your sleep. This is the third call we’ve had at 2AM.”_

_“I’m sorr—“_

_“For God’s sake, don’t apologize, Andy. Just…be careful. I don’t wanna see you burned. Again.”_

You zone back in to reality, and realize that you’re still not done with your article on why New York City officials burned thousands of dollars worth of counterfeit merchandise rather than distributing it to the homeless.

You wonder if Miranda would give you a quote on how and why H&M and other major, multi-billion dollar retailers would have enough leverage over the Anti-counterfeit Agency to have it do their dirty work.

You go back to your article, and are resolved not to think about Miranda Priestly anymore. Except that your Outlook beeps at that very moment, and you look up, and your throat goes dry.

She’s never e-mailed you before.

Your hands tremble only slightly, but your breathing is definitely elevated as you click on the message: An invitation to the Met’s exhibition of Cézanne’s greatest works.

Beneath the formal invitation message from the Met, there is only one additional line that is personalized:  _See you there tonight._

You close the message and lean back in your chair, not really seeing the peeling gray fabric of your cubicle. You close your eyes, and squeeze them in an effort to stop the racing thoughts from overwhelming your synapses.

You did not know what to make of this situation at 2AM this morning with Lily, and you certainly do not know anymore now.

Fine. You’ll go to this, but unless something good happens, you’re going to call her on what’s going on.

Okay, unless something good happens, you’ll probably call her on what’s going on.

Or, you _think_ you’ll call her on what’s going on.

Dammit.

__________________  
Thank God you have some leftover trappings of your last job; the Givenchy drapes well enough on you, even though it’s from last season. Well what the fuck could you conjure with only 6 hours notice when you no longer have access to the hallowed Closet?

You swirl around another gathering where you have no business being; you are once again “the other” in the room, a space filled with the city’s glitterati, which is (not so) surprisingly made up of mostly old, white people.

Well, they maybe old, but with the gift of fortune comes the blessings of the technological fountain of youth; you’ve caught yourself cringing at more than one Botoxed or lifted face.

These are the choices that make you different from them; not better or worse, you try to tell yourself, just different.

“Andrea.”

Somehow, she’s snuck up on you, and you don’t even have time to fortify yourself. You turn around, and there she is, a vision in red silk. “Miranda. Thanks for inviting me.”

She smiles ever so slightly, and it’s like the room got a bit lighter. “I’m glad you had the evening free.”

You bite your tongue, and just smile. She looks at you, uncertain for a moment, and then resolved the next. “There are quite a few interesting people here. This is one of the Met’s best events.”

You try to keep up, and realize that compliments are a great way to fill a void. “A distant second to Runway’s annual ball?”

She smiles, and this time it’s full-blown, genuine, and enough to blind you. You suck in a breath through your teeth, and hope you did it silently. Her eyes glimmer at your mouth, and you realize that she noticed. Dammit.

“You were always a fast learner.”

“To keep up with you, definitely.”

She reaches out and barely brushes your elbow, and you feel your arm go numb. You want to remember this forever. You are a hopeless idiot, and try to play it cool.

“Come with me, there are some people you should—“

Someone catches her eye, and she breaks off her sentence.

Everything in her goes still, and you wonder who would cause such a reaction. From engaging and seductive one moment to rigid and defensive the next, she moves at the speed of light when it comes to emoting.

You cast your glance in the direction that she’s looking, but you don’t see anyone you know that would cause such a sharp reaction. She lets go of your elbow, and pats your forearm. “Wait. I’ve just seen someone I have to talk with.”

She still isn’t looking at you, she just expects you to obey. You grit your teeth, and nod.

She looks back at you for a moment, and the silent apology in her eyes is your undoing. You sigh silently, and nod.

In your affirmation, she makes her escape.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s been an hour, and you’ve seen nothing of Miranda. So you make do, and slowly wind your way through the art; you have to admit that Cézanne’s got talent.

You smile at your self-important pronouncement and then stop as you stand in front of the most incongruous painting you’ve seen that night. After your double-take, you peer at the title:  _“Still Life with Skull.”_

What the fuck? Who puts a skull in the middle of a table of fruit?

“I could never figure that one out either.”

You turn quickly at the foreign voice behind you, and see a woman whose face is full of friendly mirth. Her smile is infectious and you return the sally. “Yea, what’s up with this one?”

She smiles slightly wider, and steps forward to stand beside you. “You know what the most disturbing part is? See that piece of fruit right in front of the skull? It’s half-eaten!”

You look back at the painting, and your eyebrows rise as you notice that she’s right. “Oh, my God!”

“The skull ate the apple!”

You laugh. “I think it’s a peach.”

She bends a bit closer to painting, and you demurely check out the rest of her package. She sneaks a look back at you, and grins. She pivots, and extends her hand, closing the small gap between you. “Helena Peabody.”

You shake her hand, and notice the firm yet unoppressive grip. “Andy Sachs.”

“Nice to meet you, Andy.”

“Likewise.”

“Are you a fan of Cézanne?”

“Not really. I was invited here. But I think I might be a convert.”

“My mother is a great admirer of his, but she’s moved on to African art now.”

“So you’re here with her?”

Helena laughs. “Erm, no. She’s off in some distant land doing something rather eccentric. I’m here in her stead.”

You can’t help but flirt, which you admit to yourself is strange. “I’m sure you fill her shoes incredibly well.”

Her smile shows blindingly white teeth. “You’re quite the charmer, eh?”

You shrug with what you hope is honest modesty, but your dimples may give you away. “I try.”

She’s having none of it, apparently. “Oh, no. We all try, but you succeed.”

Oh, wow. Apparently, good things are happening tonight. “Thank you.”

Helena frowns a bit. “I’m sorry, was that too forward?”

“Oh no, not at all. I’m just…”

“Rusty?”

You smile in acknowledgment. “Yup.”

“Well, not to push my luck, but how about we catch a drink after this? I can only take so much of making nice with these bunch of wankers.”

Your eyebrows climb in to your hairline, for many reasons. But you’re young, as is the night, and Miranda has left you once again. There is more than a little of the devil in your tone now. “I’d love to. Lead the way?”

She winks at you. “But then I miss the best view in the house.”

You can’t help it now; you blush hard. She laughs companionably. “Okay, I know. That was a bit much. C’mon, let’s get outta here.”

She takes your hand, and after another glance around the room, you realize that you have no reason to say no, and quite a few to say yes. So, you slip your arm into hers, and step into an ocean of possibility.


	4. The One Who Fell In This Game

You knew this conversation had to happen, but you can’t decide whether it’s better done face-to-face.

“So.”

“Yeah, it’s been awhile.”

“The retrospective is really taking up all my damn time.”

“Your second big showing, Lils. The Wunderkind shall strike again!”

“Stop. Don’t jinx me.”

“I went to see the  _Cézanne_  showing at the Met.” You didn’t mean to say that. Or did you?

Lily’s eyebrows climb in to her hairline, and she chokes on her beer. “You what??”

“Yeah.”

“Um, how? No one can finagle an invite to that thing. It was swank central! And do you even like  _Cézanne_??”

You gaze in to your cheap whiskey, wondering, not for the first time recently, where your life is leading you. You watch the glass, the ice causing drops of condensation drip on to the fraying cardboard coaster. “I was invited.”

Lily gives that information a moment to sink in, and you know without looking at her that she’s putting the pieces together. She was always the smarter of the two of you. You were luckier, but she’s smarter, and that’s always been the trend of your friendship; it’s what holds you two head-to-head in the race of life. “Yet another command from Miranda Priestly?”

You tilt your glass back gently in to your mouth, and you wince at the sparkle of the soda on your tongue. “I only saw her for a moment. She left me for an hour, and then I met someone.”

“You met someone? What is this, twenty questions? Are you ever going to spill, or is this your version of slowing down the reveal?”

You sigh, but you know she’s right. You were never this dramatic before. Before. Ah, the word that draws a line between the former you and the latter you, with only Miranda Priestly as the divider. “Her name is Helena, and she took me out for drinks, and then we made out for a bit, and now I’m seeing her tomorrow for drinks.”

This time Lily does choke. “Damn. When you go back to gay, you really go back, don’t you?”

“Lily.”

“Okay, sorry, but damn, Andy. Now you’ve got two women on the hook?”

“There is no hook! It’s just me! I’m just…”

“What?”

You put your head down on the table. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing. Help.”

You hear her sigh. “Okay, let’s start over. This ‘Helena.’ Is she hot?”

You raise your head, and you see her smirk. It’s infectious, and you grin a small, devilish grin. “Smoking.”

She smiles wider, and clinks her beer with your glass. “Woo! Strike one for our girl.”

You grin is full-fledged now. “Yeah. It felt good.”

“Good kisser?”

“Awesome.”

Lily laughs. “Awesome indeed.”

Your eyes crinkle as you chuckle, and as you look at your best friend, both of you bonding over the crazy New York antics of your young lives, you think maybe, just maybe, things are going to be okay.

“So what’s her full name?”

“Helena Peabody. You should meet her sometime. I think she’s majorly in to the art scene. Or at least I think her family is.”

“Holy shit!!”

“What??”

“What did you say her name was?”

“Helena. Peabody.”

“Oh, my God. Andy!”

Then again, looking at the flabbergasted face in front of you, maybe things just went back to being not-okay again. You sigh silently, and fortify yourself with another gulp of your whiskey, somehow knowing that you’re going to need it for the rest of this conversation.

——————–

The Next Day: Lunch.

She glided into her seat. “Thank you for meeting me.”

Helena chuckled. “Only you would make this more dramatic than it already seems. Why am I not surprised?”

Miranda sniffed. “There’s no need for mockery.”

Helena sighed, weary already. “What do you want?”

Miranda leaned back in her finely cushioned chair. “You left the Met’s party with Andrea Sachs.”

“Yes, I did.”

Miranda paused, breathing slowly through her nose; the actual confirmation of what she had already known shook her. “Why?”

Now Helena smirked. “Why do you care?”

Miranda’s lip quirked; so little about Helena had changed, especially the penchant to needle her when Miranda most wanted direct answers. “She used to be my assistant.”

“Used to. Well, that’s all in the past now, isn’t it? Given the rate at which you go through assistants, she’s nothing more than another discarded Hermes scarf.”

Perhaps in her attempt to be direct Miranda had given too much away; this was the unfortunate effect that Andrea had on her. Clearly, that girl was trouble. This girl, too. That much Miranda remembered. Well, that and, really, much more. “Don’t toy with me, Helena.”

“Then don’t act imperious with me. I’m not one of your sycophants who is going to lick your boots, and be grateful for the opportunity to do so.”

Miranda tried not to sneer. “Really?”

Helena leaned forward, tired, and rubbed her forehead. “Look, I don’t want to play games. That was all a very long time ago—“

“Not so long ago.”

Now Helena glared. “I’m not some misunderstood ingénue looking to shock Mummy into noticing me by taking up with an older woman. Besides, she’s come around. Especially since she’s had her own…experiences.”

Miranda’s right eyebrow rose expressively. “I see you haven’t lost your ability to speak in long, rambling sentences that do nothing to answer the original question. What is your interest in Andrea Sachs?”

“Dear God, what about her? We went out for drinks alright? Is that passable in your Highness’ estimation?”

Miranda pursed her lips just so. “There’s no need to be brusque.”

Helena laughed, and it wasn’t a pleasant sound this time. “Brusque? Lord, you’re one to talk since you redefined the meaning of that word. Now, listen, if I’m reading you right, and I don’t know if I am because, thank God, it’s been that long, you’ve got some sort of interest in that girl. And having been there, all I can say is, let it go. For your own good, Miranda.”

“Again, those sentences. And don’t presume you know what’s in my head; it’s a waste of time.”

“Oh, I know you, Miranda. I know your type, especially when you’re between husbands. I don’t care if you throw your martini in my face, but thank God you dumped that arse of a husband. From what I heard at least. Nothing worse than a man who can’t hold his drink. Regardless, don’t ensare Andy in this.”

“Oh, how sweet. ‘Andy,’ is it? Charming if revolting. Very few things are both, Helena, which means that it is more one than the other. You are hardly a paragon of virtue in these situations.”

Helena leaned forward, now furious. “I’ve changed, and I don’t give a damn whether you believe me; the past few years are testament to that. But, think about this, Miranda: What is going to be different this time? You’ve got an itch to scratch, and you’ve found another nubile, young thing to fixate upon. You already know you’ll end up breaking her into smithereens while you move on unbowed to your next nuptials. I’m asking you…No, I’m telling you not to let it happen this time. But if you go forward and want Andy to be the next one, well, good luck to you because someone else is ahead of you in the line.”

Miranda clenched her jaw, something she rarely did, but Helena was a rarity. In so many ways. “How dare you.”

Helena snorted derisively. “Oh, please. You need to hear it from someone, and who else is going to tell you? I’m richer than you, and don’t give a damn about your sphere of influence, or your demonic powers. Therefore I am also one of the few people who can tell you the truth, and whom you can trust. But you don’t care about either of those things. So let’s just say that this is on behalf of Andy Sachs, because I don’t want what happened to me to happen to her.”

Miranda had no words, which was even rarer, and she felt as if this entire lunch had gotten so quickly out of hand that, again a rarity, she was scrambling for a way to gain the upper hand.

But Helena was done. She put her napkin down on the table and rose. “Miranda, there were some wonderful times, but if I had to do it all over again, I can say I almost wish I had never met you. But don’t assume a smidgen of salvation in that ‘almost.’ It just means that I was grateful to learn how to heal a broken heart so young. But the pain you caused was like a hydra; it led to the devastation I took out on many other people. It was sick and twisted, but after a decade, with the love of friends and bucket loads of therapy, I’ve moved on. Don’t let it happen again. Now that you are cognizant, don’t knowingly do it. The fallout would make Chernobyl look like a high school chemistry lab accident.”

And, with that, Helena picked up her clutch, and walked out of Miranda’s life for the second time.


	5. The Sweeping Insensitivity of This Still Life

 

Miranda calls her on Monday. Andrea does not know what to say. She has no idea what Miranda wants.

“Andrea.”

“Hello, Miranda.”

“Are you free for dinner tonight?”

A part of her quivers at the thought of being alone with Miranda under what would probably be decidedly unprofessional circumstances. “Unfortunately, no.” Andrea decides not to expand upon that.

“Are you seeing Helena Peabody for dinner instead?”

Andy is stunned. She knows Miranda is oftentimes omniscient, but c’mon. Besides, she is unsure how any of it is Miranda’s business. She is filled with equal parts trepidation and courage; a dangerous combination if there were ever one in dealing with Miranda Priestly.

“How do you know Helena?”

Miranda chuckles faintly, and the sound enchants Andy for a moment. “Andrea, you should know by now that there are very few influential people in the world with whom I am not acquainted. In this case, intimately so.”

Andy gulps.  _Intimately? What the fuck?_  “I can’t do dinner tonight.”

“Tomorrow then. Cipriani at 9PM?”

Andy wants to sigh very badly, but does not. “Fine, see you then.”

And without further adieu, the journalist hears the dial tone.

======

 

The Next Night: Dinner  
For some unfathomable reason, Andy does not raise the issue of Miranda with Helena when speaking with her yesterday. Perhaps she does not want to know, but she also realizes that Miranda will disabuse her of any pretty romantic notions very quickly.

So, Andy does what she does best when it comes to Miranda: She waits for the other shoe to drop.

“The veal is very good. I would recommend it.”

Andrea just looks at her. “I’m vegetarian.”

Miranda wants to sneer, but manages not to. “I see.”

“So, how’s Runway these days?”

“Doing its best given the subpar talent with which I am relegated.”

Andrea lips curl slightly upward at the familiar complaint. “I’m sure the end product is as stellar as it always has been.”

“Oh, you’re now a fan?”

“Miranda, I’ve always been a fan of yours, regardless of my opinions on fashion.”

“Given your expertise on fashion when you first started, and your slightly improved state since then, I’ll let that pass.”

Andy is getting desperate for a topic that would not invite her companion’s ire, and yet she is angry at herself, that she’s letting herself be subjected to such an attitude when  _she_  was the one invited to this dinner. “How are the twins?”

“Adjusting to the current dynamic at home better than I expected. But then again, there is a resiliency in children by which I’m flabbergasted.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

The waiter appears magically at Miranda’s elbow, and they both order. Having been at expensive meals before during her tenure at Runway, Andy knows that the portions of her meal will do nothing to sate her appetite. But she perseveres, as she always does, when in the company of this woman.

Miranda returns to the subject at hand. “But we didn’t come here to talk about my homestead.”

Andy lets her lead because to do otherwise would be futile. “Okay.”

“I came here to warn you.”

“About what?”

“Helena. She’s not whom she seems.”

Andy jaw drops, but she aims to recover quickly. “How would you know? And why does it matter?”

“Trust me on this, Andrea. Helena would like to come off as a seemingly interesting, and mostly wholesome woman, but beneath the surface lies the heart of a viper. And those things do not change.”

Andrea feels a flash of fury go straight through her, and she tries not to let it show, but something must change in her demeanor because Miranda’s face becomes grimmer. “Listen to me, Andrea, she is everything seductive at the outset. But tread lightly. Or better yet, do not tread at all.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Miranda sips her Martini, and does not speak for the longest time. She raises her eyebrow just so. “I would hate to see a talent that I have groomed implode so extravagantly on an ill-advised affair.”

Andy takes an unladylike gulp of her Scotch before responding. “So you’re afraid that Helena will destroy my career?”

“No, you will do that all by yourself because she will ravage you. And you will have nothing to give your work. It will be a slow, ugly descent in to a lonely hell.”

To say that she is shocked would be the understatement of the year. Andy feels everything go hot inside her, and does not hold her tongue. “My God! Do you listen to what you’re saying? This is something not even Dickens could come up with. She hasn’t done anything, and unless she does, I’m not going to be so easily scared. Not even by you, Miranda. Not anymore.”

Miranda leans back in her chair, allowing the anger that has risen up to go down to a simmer. She is paler than just a moment ago. “You’ve consummated this relationship.”

Andrea snorts in to her drink at the non sequitur, and wipes her lips with the starched napkin. “Okay, this dinner started in the Twilight Zone, but now it is none of your business.”

Miranda’s lips thin. “That’s all.”

Andy considers walking out, but even when she is angriest with Miranda, there is that tendril of affection and longing that always runs deeper than her fury. She looks down at her meal, and finds nothing to say. There is a lump in her throat, made up of equal parts agony and confusion, and it is all she can do not to burst in to tears at that very moment.

Some things never change.

Nothing more is said during dinner. Miranda signs the check, and they both go their separate ways immediately after leaving the restaurant without saying goodbye.

Andy knows that she is, to put it mildly, in for a sleepless night.

Again, some things never change.

======

  
The Next Evening  
Andy realizes that this date at Helena’s apartment is not going to go as she planned.

She wants to be taken in by the gorgeous views of Manhattan, by the understated yet undoubtedly expensive furnishings, by the company of a woman who is both explosively attractive and unguardedly charming.

She sees Helena walk up behind her while Andy is staring at the Chrysler building in the distance.

“So…How was dinner with the Dragon Lady?”

Andy accepts the glass of wine, and is done with playing for time. “I didn’t realize that you two knew each other. The phrase she used was ‘intimately acquainted’.”

Helena is appropriately startled. “Oh, good Lord.”

Andy simply takes a sip of wine, and then cocks her head. She is the picture of patience even if the topic is enough to make her stomach churn. “What happened, Helena?”

Helena sighs. “I really didn’t think this would come up. And I really, really hoped it wouldn’t.”

“Can you just tell me? I’ve had enough melodrama last night to last me a lifetime.”

Helena turns away, moves to the couch. “Yes, that definitely has not changed on her part. Here’s the unvarnished truth: We were involved very many years ago.”

Andy tries not to let her jaw drop. Sure, she had guessed there was something there, but to have it confirmed shocked her on a level that surprises her. “You had a relationship? With Miranda? Like, a sexual thing??”

“Yes. It lasted for little more than a year-and-a-half, and it was…a mistake. A colossal, life-altering mistake. It was in my younger days, when I was, well, younger, but more importantly, extremely foolish and incorrigibly headstrong. And Miranda fit the bill for the perfectly unhealthy relationship.”

Andy is frozen in her place. “I can’t believe it.”

Helena looks at her sympathetically. “I know it’s a lot to process, and I’m sorry you found out this way. I wish I had had the chance to tell you in a less…loaded fashion.”

Andy shakes her head, hoping to clear it of the onslaught of information and thoughts swirling in her head. “It’s just so…”

Helena looks down in to her wine. “Yes, I know. There are a lot of adjectives that would fit the bill: Unbelievable, shocking, salacious, tawdry, idiotic…self-destructive. And they would all be right.”

Andy slowly walks over to the couch, and sits no less than a few inches away. She looks directly in to those captivating brown eyes, almost pleading for clarity. “She warned me off you.”

Helena only chuckles, in an utterly cynical manner. “I’m sure she did. And at the risk of putting you in the middle, I am very tempted to reiterate all the warnings she mentioned, except I would direct it at her. But, look, I won’t say any of that because you can see the forest for the trees. I like you very much, but only you can decide whom you want, and what relationship you desire.”

This is the most important distinction to Andy; Helena respects her and treats her like an adult, whereas Miranda still dictates and condescends.

Some decisions are harder than others, and the tendril that inexplicably draws Andy to Miranda remains entirely intact. But Andy finds it easier than she thought she would be to slip her hand in to Helena’s, and rests her head on the older woman’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

Helena kisses the top of her head. “You’re welcome, darling.”

“Can we just stay in tonight?”

“Of course. Anything in particular you’d like?”

Andy looks up at Helena slowly, and kisses her very softly.

Helena sighs in to the embrace, her heart feeling lighter than just a few moments ago. Really, she is utterly unsurprised that Miranda desires this young woman.

Helena is rarely smitten so quickly, but she is, and with that simple kiss, she decides, after too many disappointments, to trust her instincts wholeheartedly. It is time, she thinks to herself, to indulge herself today and consider later whatever price is to be paid.

“Come to bed with me,” Helena says, the desire in her body causing her voice to pitch lower than usual.

Andy looks at her, unblinking, for the longest moment. And just when Helena starts to reconsider her entire course of action, Andy stands up and beckons Helena with an outstretched hand.


	6. Unititled.

There were two sides to nearly every issue, but she knew that when it came to herself, there were a million shades of gray.  
However, over the years, she had been through enough therapy and navel-gazing to come to the not-so-profound conclusion that there were two great modi operandi playing a constant and exhausting tug-of-war within her: self-destruction and self-preservation. It really was that simple. Or she was.

Any moment of great despair or immense triumph was achieved through one of those two factors in her personality. Only very, very rarely did they conspire together.

Miranda sighed, massaging her temples as she took a break from the Book. She took off her glasses, leaned her head back, gazing at the ceiling and nothing at all.

And tried not to think.

—–

_She didn’t usually attend such small, minimally-publicized events; her social calendar was packed as is._   
_However when Minerva Pickering had phoned to invite her, and called in a favor, she didn’t have a choice. Well, of course, she did, but she wanted to be even with dear Minnie, and this was the price._   
_The champagne was surprisingly lyrical, and the patrons weren’t entirely unfashionable, so she didn’t consider the night a total waste. That did not mean, however, that she was going to tempt fate by trying the hors d’oeuvres._   
_She barely glanced at the art; contemporary art was so often stupid and pointless. What she tried to create on a daily basis, now that was an entirely different matter. Miranda smiled to herself, and perhaps it was this moment of fleeting geniality that prompted a stranger to walk up to her._

“ _Hello, you must be Miranda Priestly.”  
_

_Miranda eyed her, and slid on her bland smile. “I must?”_

“ _Oh, yes. I’d recognize that sense of style anywhere.”_

“ _Really. Well. I seem to have been given away.”_

“ _Bette Porter. I’m so glad you made it.”_

“ _Ah. Well, Minnie’s sense of style does warrant inspection.”  
_

_Bette smiled gamely, swallowing a chuckle at the last minute. “Yes, I agree. May I get you another glass?”_

_Miranda was ready to automatically say no, but quite unlike herself, paused for a moment. “Yes, why not?”_

_Bette beckoned a nearby waiter and snagged two glasses, smiling at the man in thanks. “Here you go. I hope you like Veuve.”_

“ _Thank you. Are you fan of champagne?”  
_

“ _I like it as a celebratory drink. It is a classic.”_

“ _If a boring choice.”_

“ _Well, my first option was to go with hard liquor. Who can resist a good Rob Roy? But I thought about it, and realized that I wasn’t running a bar but a gallery. So…”_

“ _If you had any Scots in attendance, they would club you over the head for choosing bubbly over their beloved historical figure.”_

“ _So far, no Scots, or clubbing. Though I do have a British friend who will be coming, I should ask her about how she feels about that freedom fighter.”_

_Miranda infinitesimally raised her eyebrow. This woman was keeping up. “One man’s freedom fighter…”_

“ _Yes, but I don’t think Helena cares much about the British Raj.”_  
“ _Helena?”_

“ _And there she is! Really, speak of the Devil…”_

_Miranda froze for a moment, and then looked to where Bette was pointing._

_Oh, damn._

_And there they were._

_Together._

——

Miranda opened her eyes.

The memory of seeing Andrea and Helena, together, in public. Touching.

Well. That would explain why most of the Art Department was fired today.

She had tried so hard not to let it affect her, but the more she tried, the more it had affected her. Like quicksand.

This has got to stop. You have to do something.

Miranda had made every non-lethal attempt to ensure that Andrea would not be with Helena. She had tried rattling Helena, and warning Andrea, but it was all fruitless.

If anything, she might have pushed them together sooner than they would have gotten there organically.

She squeezed her eyes.

She fully realized that she was not omnipotent; she hadn’t been able to prevent Nina Ricci from letting Olivier Theyskens go, or stop ankle boots from becoming popular. These moments of failure kept her in check, and sometimes she even welcomed them; they challenged her.

She wasn’t so far gone that she thought she could have everything, but she could have almost-everything. That was fine for now.

This was the first time something she had really, really wanted had thwarted her.

But she had grace.

—-

“ _You shouldn’t stare. It’s rude. Though, given the object, I can’t really fault you at all.”_

_Miranda didn’t turn around. “Don’t flatter yourself.”_

_Helena stepped up from behind her, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, gazing in to the crowd. “Oh, I’m not flattering myself. I’m flattering her. Although, you are right, I might be indirectly gussying myself up in the process.”_  
“ _Gloating isn’t attractive. And given your ensemble tonight, you need all the help you can get.”_

“ _Oh, you noticed. I’m so…flattered.”_

“ _I hope you don’t talk in bed. That would ensure your little dalliance won’t last long. So, maybe, yes, you should talk more in bed.”_

“ _Oh, Miranda. I do wonder at you. So…untruthful.”  
_

_And, with that, Helena beat a strategic retreat, and left Miranda grinding her teeth and staring at Andrea Sachs in the distance._

——-

 

She could accept reality, with enough time, with enough care, with enough pampering. She realized that lust was one of the more debilitating of the seven deadly sins.

So Miranda resolved to satiate it in the spirit of Oscar Wilde; just because she could not have the object of her seemingly overwhelming desire did not mean she couldn’t find a passable substitute.

After all, as her college roommate had so crassly put it one tipsy night: The best way to get over someone was to get under someone else.


	7. Between Us And Them

Andrea smiles at her lover. “Don’t worry. You’ll see, we’re going to have blast.

Helena smirks at her, matching the quick step. “I’m not nervous. But that’s the third time you’ve said that in the past three days.”

 

“Hey! What does that mean?”

 

“Oh, you’re a smart girl.”

 

“Oh, my God, sometimes you sound way too snooty.”

 

“When I’m convinced that it doesn’t endear me more, then I’ll stop.”

 

“See! You just did it again!”

 

“I’m timing my lines to increase your very becoming blush.”

 

“This isn’t a blush! It’s the sun! It’s making me squint.”

 

Helena wisely swallows a smile. “Of course, darling.” Then promptly strides to the door of the bar. “Allow me,” she says with a gallant gesture of her hand for Andy to enter.

 

The younger woman dips her head and looks at Helena through her lashes. “Well, if there can’t be a puddle on the road, I suppose a door will do.”

 

“After you, your Majesty.”

 

“C’mon, Sir Raleigh, you have people to impress.”

 

————-

Later That Night

 

The beat was irresistible, and even though she didn’t know who the hell the latest craze was, she knew with whom she wanted ‘to get jiggy with it.’

 

“I can’t believe you actually said that phrase aloud.”

 

“That’s me showing my vulnerability. Revealing moments of nerdom from high school slang.”

 

“Charming.”

 

Andy only tilted her lips upward, and draped her arms over Helena’s shoulders. “Aren’t I?”

 

Helena leaned in, and ran light kisses up her lover’s neck. “I know you think I do.”

“C’mon…Dance with me.”

 

“We’re already dancing.”

 

 

Andy winked. “Damn, I’m good.”

 

Helena relented and leaned down to kiss her companion. “Yes. Yes, you are.”

 

———————–

 

“They are almost sickeningly sweet.” Doug shook his head, unable to tear his eyes away.

 

Lily almost agreed. “Almost? Oh no, they are definitely sickening.”

 

“It’s just not fair.”

 

“I can’t believe we’re both single, Nate’s in Boston, and Andy’s gone lezzie again.”

 

Doug poured more beer down his throat. “Look, there are, like, fifty guys here, and I haven’t even said hello to anyone. No one’s come up to me. I’m ugly.”

 

Lily rolls her eyes, but still puts her arm on his. “Doug, you are not ugly. You’re very sexy. Hot! If you weren’t gay…”

 

He laughingly pushes her arm away. “Oh, please! I already know your type, remember? Unfortunately, all the black guys here are definitely gay.”

 

“I’m not entirely stupid, Doug. I do have gaydar.”

 

Doug pushes his bottle away, and sets his head down morosely on the table. “I’m gonna be single forever.”

 

Lily keeps an eye on Andy, while nudging Doug’s shoulder sharply. “Get up! If you look like this pathetic, no one’s gonna hit on you. Put some effort in to it!”

 

He exhales gustily, and then shakes him upright. “Oh, alright. But one condition. You have to tour the bar with me. We can scope the guys out together.”

 

“What about Andy?”

 

Doug rolled his eyes. “Does it look she’s going to be leaving anytime soon?”

 

Lily follows his gaze to see their friend doing less of dancing than just simulating sex on the dancefloor. “Oh, Lord…”

 

“Yea, let’s go.”

 

“But you do have to admit. Helena’s something.”

 

“She’s a 12 on a 10-scale. Tres posh.”

 

“Think it’s going to last?”

 

With one last look at the couple, Doug takes Lily’s hand, ready to lead her in to the throngs. “As long as Voldemort behaves.”

 

—————-

 

The next morning, Andy is never so glad for coffee. There is a dull pounding in her head, but she knows from her college days that it could be overcome with coffee, water, and toast. However, coffee is definitely first on that list.

 

She pages through the newspapers listlessly, keeping up with what kept the world up on this Sunday morning. She goes through the comics, and finds them only mildly amusing, and then, on a lark, flips to the society pages.

 

And there it was: In grainy technicolor, Miranda Priestly attending a charity auction, with a very handsome man on her arm.

 

Andy clenches her jaw without noticing the grating of her molars. She cannot tear her eyes away, and she cannot recognize the sweeping orchestra of conflicting emotions that wash over her.

 

The words seem to blend together: Richard Harrington. Hedge fund CEO. Eligible bachelor.

 

“Good morning, Sunshine.”

 

Andy looks up, as if in another life, and sees Helena, wearing only a towel around her torso as she wraps another over her hair. The sound seems to be coming from a great distance.

 

Andy starts breathing again, and the world comes back in to focus.

 

Helena looks at her quizzically. “Everything okay?”

 

Andy looks back at the paper in an instant, and turns the page. “Fine. Just another political scandal.”

 

“In the mood for brunch? How about we get to Pastis?”

 

Andy stares at the carpet and realizes that she needs to vacuum. “That’s fine.”

 

Helena comes up to her, and crouches to meet Andy’s eyes. “Hey. It’ll be okay.”

 

Andy looks in to her eyes. “It will?”

 

“I’ll only be gone for a couple of weeks.”

 

“Until the next time.”

 

“Andy, you know why I can’t move to New York.”

 

“Do you really want to do long-distance? It’s absolute hell. I know.”

“I’m willing to try this, I want this. I think it’s worth it.”

 

Andy looks away, and exhales with force and intent. “Helena…”

 

“Look, we don’t have to address this right now.”

 

“You’re leaving tonight.”

 

“So let’s enjoy what time we have until then.”

 

Andy looks back at her, hurting in a multitude of ways, feeling everything from adoration to guilt in one swift glance. “Tell me it will be okay.”

 

Helena leans forward to kiss her forehead, and they sit like that for awhile.


	8. Sometimes The Way That You Act Makes Me Wonder What I Am To You

The days are long, an endless parade of work, social, and family duties. She is always a hard worker, but she can feel the strain from going beyond the pale. But she also feels a thrill at the exhaustion, wrapping it around herself like a protective cocoon.

There is a 6% increase in subscription over three months, while other magazines, even the venerable ones, are closing at an astonishing rate.

Her bonus is large by the day’s standard.

Her children are evolving in to their inevitable teenage selves, with more surliness that she displayed at their age, but her memory is foggy and she forgives them.

Really, life is surprisingly going well.

She is dating every eligible bachelor in town, and actually doesn’t care about the talk.

_My cup runneth over?_

There is a tug of a thought somewhere but she has become adept enough, in the past few months, to silence the name whispered in her subconscious. Most of the time.

The car stops, and she waits the requisite ten seconds it takes Roy to get out of the driver’s seat and come around to open the door.

She draws a single, silent, and stellar breath of air before the flashing of cameras nearly blinds her.  _Your future is so bright, you have to wear sunglasses._ She remembers Cassidy giggling over the phrase with Caroline.

The paparazzi scream her name to get her to look at them long enough, but she only curls her lip, and pauses for an instant before walking down the red carpet. She will stay for thirty minutes, which is ten more than she would for another cause.

She slips off her cape in to her assistants arms, and glides toward the crowd. The moment always comes: they stop everything just for a second, which is an eternity in New York’s patience, and stare. Her expression does not change because if it did, it would ruin the effect. Then everything resumes, and the volume is only louder.

Martha Stewart, of all people, walks towards her with a ready smile. _Crafts for the Crazies_ , Miranda thinks, and smiles back.

The clock is ticking.

After what seems like an eternity, she dispatches Charles van Buuren, whom, she whispers to her assistant, should never be invited to any of her events. What an utter bore, and dressed so abysmally that her eyes hurt from even the memory of his sartorial choices.

“Miranda.”

She tries not to shiver, but cannot mask the stiffening of her shoulders. Andrea knows not to approach from the front but from behind, the shoulder other than the one occupied by her current first assistant, whose task it is to announce in a whisper people walking toward her.

Miranda turns, taking her time, as if the gravitational constant has changed. She did not want to appear gauche, so she still invites Andrea to select events. She smiles, proud of herself. Even in this, she is learning to be flawlessly devoted. Her expression is unchanged from bland interest. She is learning. “Andrea.”

The younger woman blushes as if she cannot help herself. “Thanks for inviting me. It’s a great event.”

Miranda does not respond, but speaks to her assistant without looking away. “Chloe, will you get me another glass of champagne?” Chloe nods and knows that this is her signal to get lost for awhile. That is why Chloe knows she is going to be promoted soon.

Miranda doesn’t wait to see her assistant leave her vicinity before letting her eyes wander over the crowd close to them. “Where is Helena?”

But she catches the passing flicker in Andrea’s eyes. “She isn’t here. How are you?”

Miranda is a dog with a bone, but she has a glimmer of emotional intelligence. “Well. How is your work?”

“I’ve been promoted!” The phrase makes Andrea smile as she delivers it, and Miranda feels blinded for a moment. Andrea cannot hold back from preening a bit. “Associate Junior Editor for the World desk.”

Before Miranda can remember herself, her thoughts tumble out. “Could they put any more adjectives in front of the word “editor”?”

Andrea grins unrepetantly. “Yes, I know. It’s rather lowly, but y’know…Thus spoke Zarathustra et cetera.”

“Ah, the powers that be. Yes, there is a grand plan for all of us.”

Andrea smiles conspiratorially. “Unless you  _are_  the power that be.”

Miranda feels the resulting smile tug at her lips, but she denies it. “Well.”

She sees Andrea struggle, but she’s already spent more time than warranted talking to this young woman. She knows it will be on everyone’s lips; Miranda Priestly had spent ten whole minutes talking to a nobody.

Miranda feels an old, familiar squeeze within her, and just for a moment, she lets herself memorize everything about the scene, this exact moment.

Then the world rights itself again. “I have to go. These events are so dreadfully boring.”

Miranda watches carefully, and cannot help herself when is pleased at the wince that goes through Andrea. The younger woman’s voice is softer now, trying to catch Miranda’s eye. “It was good to see you.”

But Miranda does not have any more time. She still has to see the Chairwoman of the charity, and only has five minutes left. Life is full of difficult choices. “Don’t forget to catch up with Peter Sherman. I told him to expect you.”

She turns away without another glance, and within five seconds, her first assistant is once again by her side. “Find me Agatha,” she says to Chloe, expecting of course her assistant to know exactly to whom she was referring. Three minutes with the Chairwoman, and she can leave.

She looks back once, and doesn’t see Andrea.

Time to move on.

—–

Andy has become a TMZ junkie. And, even though she vomits a little in her mouth when she seriously considers it, she has also started checking Perez Hilton.

_How the mighty have fallen._

She has set up her browser (both at home and at work) to alert her of any news regarding her former employer. She does not think too hard about why she has done this.

She, of course, does not tell Helena.

As if conjured by Andy’s mind, the phone rings, and she looks at the name flashing on the screen. “Hey.”

“Hello, darling. How are you?”

“I’m okay. Just working on an Op-Ed. What about you? How’s LA?”

“I’ve really missed my friends, but of course, I’m missing you. Op-Ed? For your paper?”

“I miss you, too. I’m glad you got to see them.”

“But the sun is in full force here. I’m losing weight with every breath.”

“Don’t rub it in.”

“Just one of the many charms of Los Angeles.”

Andy bites back her immediate retort, and wills herself to ask the important questions. “I bet Kit is glad to have you back.”

“Over the moon, which is nice because now at least I feel like I have purpose.”

Andy winces, and doesn’t let it sink in too far, yet again, that Helena’s world is across the country.

Helena seems to catch herself one moment too late. She quickly tries to recover lost ground. “But, my heart, of course, is in New York.”

Andy closes her eyes. “Helena…”

Helena lowers her voice just so. “I’ll be back soon.”

Andy opens her eyes as her Google News alert sounds to her. She clicks the link and sees Miranda at yet another social occasion, this time the editrix brought a date. Another new date. Andy clutches the phone fiercely. “Hurry back.”


	9. WE ARE LIVING HERE

There were, as always, the triumphs and tribulations that came with any relationship. Only this one was heightened with the onus of distance.

Andy slammed her door wide open, and grinned. “You’re here!”

Helena grinned. “I am!”

Andy didn’t wait; she enveloped her lover in a hard grip, and in the next moment, she was kissing Helena.

The British woman was laughing into the kiss, thrilled, as always, with the vibrant onslaught of Andy’s welcome. And then the laugh turned into a moan as she felt her lover’s hands everywhere, divesting her of her clothing in a harried and haphazard fashion.

Somehow, they stumbled on to the bed, and before either of them knew it, Andy was inside Helena, sucking on her throat as she coaxed her lover to an orgasm.

In the aftermath, they were both panting. Andy slowly rose, and looked down at her lover, and smiled. “Happy anniversary.”

Helena smirked. “Gosh, has it been five months already?”

Andy’s eyebrow rose. “If you haven’t gotten me a present, you’re in big trouble, darling.”

Helena chuckled. “Oh, I’ve many presents for you. Let me show you the first one.”

And with that, Helena twisted Andy underneath her, and began to demonstrate just what she meant.

_______________________

“What do you mean you can’t make it this week?”

“I’m sorry, darling, but there’s a problem with the club. Inspections, and tax stuff. Apparently, they need both owners to be present.”

Andy couldn’t find her voice; her throat was burning with the effort of not crying.

“Andy? Say something, darling.”

Andy closed her eyes, and breathed in and out deeply, praying for resolve. Yet, her voice was strained with the weight of unshed tears. “What’s there to say?”

“Darling, don’t be like that. I’ll be there soon. Another week or two, and we’ll see each other again.  
Andy clenched her jaw, wanting to scream at the unfairness of it all.

________________________________

It was a secret of Andy’s that she liked to go to bars alone sometime.

She had found early in her twenties that if one went to a bar with the sole purpose of having a drink, and not for finding a one-night-stand, bars could be awesome places to be alone and yet not lonely.

“Fancy meeting you here,” said a familiar voice to her right.

Andy turned, and felt a genuine smile break apart. “Nigel!”

She nearly plowed him over in her unexpected delight.

“Oof! Well, it’s always nice to be acknowledged, even in your country bumpkin fashion.”

She nudged him rather roughly. “Play nice, or I won’t buy you a drink, Nige.”

He tilted his head so, and she realized that he had picked up that affectation from Miranda.

Nigel eyed her drink. “Drinking alone? You haven’t become an alcoholic in your spare time, have you?”

“Ha! What spare time? What will you have?”

“A refill, if you please. A Cosmo. And no tittering from the peanut gallery if you please.”

She grinned, and then waved to the bartender, signaling for Nigel’s new drink. “I would never titter, Nigel. Especially not at you.”

“Good to know that your gratitude still extends that far.”

Andy smiled bitterly. “Gloves off, buddy. Let’s just pretend I’m not the ingénue and you’re the Fairy Godmother for once, okay?”

His eyebrows rose. “A détente? Well, what the hell…So, come here often?”

She smiled at him, and shook her head. “No, not really. I just needed some…crowds.”

Nigel looked around and then back at his former protégé. “Well, you could have picked a better spot.”

“Mmm.”

“By the way, I hear you’ve now become a regular at our shindigs.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say ‘regular.’ But I do get some of the crumbs thrown to the peasants.”

“Funny she never mentioned it to me.”

Andy swallowed a gulp of her drink bitterly. “To be honest, I don’t know why she even does it.”

He narrowed his eyes, and then took a sip of his new drink, momentarily closing his eyes in appreciation of the subtle flavors in his drink. “Ah, it’s so difficult to get a good Cosmo. But this place has it.”

Andy looked at him now. “Nigel? Do you know why I was invited to those things?”

His eye was caught by a handsome man in the far corner of the bar. But for a moment, Nigel turned back to Andy, and looked at her dead in the eye. “It’s rather hilarious that neither of you have a clue.”

Andy frowned. “What?”

He shook his head in wonder, and then barely smiled. “Gotta go see about a man. Ta!”

Andy had half a mind to drag his ass back to the bar, but she knew he loved nothing better than being mysterious; she wouldn’t get anything out of him for the rest of the night.

_________________________

The wind was chilly, but it was as if she didn’t feel it. She wondered if she looked as miserable as she felt. Another fight with Helena earlier in the day, and it had taken all of her energy to drag herself out of bed, and get ready for the latest event.

Andrea didn’t know why she attended each and every event Miranda invited to; maybe it was because these were the only interactions, fleeting as they were, she had with the editrix, or maybe it was just for the promise of career advancement.

As it were, Andrea had received quite a few good leads from these, so it wasn’t like her time wasn’t well spent.

But, if she were honest with herself, Andrea knew she didn’t want to dissect her own behavior too much. Everyone had their illusions; Andrea, as honest as she was so often, felt she was entitled to a few of her own.

There was nothing but blackness to be seen from the balcony of the ballroom, but that didn’t stop her from being glued to the spot. Even if she were to catch her death from the cold, it was almost a relief to feel something; even pain from the harsh Winter wind.

“Have you lost what little you had of your sanity?”

Andrea’s brow cleared, and the smile came unbidden as always. She turned around slowly. “Miranda. Hello.”

Miranda, of course, was a vision. And she hadn’t taken off her fur stole all night.

Andrea smirked. “At least you’re dressed for the occasion.”

Miranda frowned just a tiny bit. “And you’re not. Really, I know you find these gatherings tedious, but there’s no reason to risk pneumonia as an escape; you could just leave.”

Andrea felt her smile wobble, and she turned back to the dark silhouette of the garden. “Now that would just be rude. And I maybe many things, even dimwitted, but I am not rude.”

Miranda should have left by now. She knew she should have, but there was something in the younger woman’s voice. The editrix felt, inexplicably, like a moth to a very large flame.

That such a young and, in many ways, inexperienced woman should make her, the grand dame of the fashion world, feel so…unsteady…often enraged Miranda. But tonight, it just vexed her.

Regardless, she drew closer, until she was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Andrea. “And here I thought you were looking at the burning libraries of Alexandria.”

Okay, even for Miranda, that was cryptic. So Andrea just sputters a laugh. “What?”

Miranda didn’t look at her. “With the avid interest you were staring at the great beyond, I would imagine something as dramatic as that would be what held your attention.”

“No, I was just thinking.”

“Ah, the follies of youth.”

“Something like that.”

Miranda looked at the young woman’s profile, a tendril of Andrea’s hair waving near her cheek in defiance to hairspray, and the moonlight casting shadows at the angles of her jaw.

Andrea sensed the gaze, and turned to her. “What? Is my make-up caking in the cold?”

For a moment, Miranda was speechless, and then she looked away. “You are mad to be out in this weather.”

Andrea chuckled. “So you’ve said.”

Without thinking, Miranda reached out and brushed Andrea’s left hand, the one closest to Miranda, the one that held a half-filled champagne flute. “Your hands are freezing.”

Andrea’s breath caught in her throat. This was the first time Miranda had ever touched her.

Andrea felt everything slow down, and she could barely find her breath. “Miranda,” she breathed, nearly silent, almost a supplication.

Miranda looked at her then, and Andrea cursed the angle of the moonlight; Miranda’s face was shrouded in darkness, and the younger woman couldn’t make anything of an expression out.

And then Miranda drew her hand away, and shrugged her stole closer to her shoulders. “You should go before you catch your death.”

Andrea was still frozen as she watched Miranda walk away, back into the glittering world of the party, taking any tendril of warmth with her.


	10. EVERLASTING

Andy never initiated contact with Miranda, but she had done so today. It was 8PM, and autumn had fully entered New York. The leaves had started changing color, the winds had picked up, and it was time for pea coats to be worn.

As she navigated the subway, and then the streets, Andy refused to think about exactly what she was attempting to do. A part of her screamed that this was too much, too much to actually  _verbalize_. She didn’t even know what would happen, with the morbid part of her mind – a necessary holdover from her time working for Miranda – predicting a best-case result of total evisceration.

For Andy, self-preservation seemed to be a dwindling resource around Miranda.

And, finally, she was there, staring down the crisp white door of Miranda’s townhouse. Maybe Andy should have left a note at her apartment, in case Miranda chose to dispose of her body in the Hudson. A note to let Andy’s parents or friends or, hell, even the police – whomever first went looking for a sign of her – to know that had she disappeared, it was most likely that Andy had been incinerated by the sheer stupidity of the task upon which she had embarked.

Andy was quaking in her Steve Madden boots, but before her better judgment could intervene, she knocked on the door. Loudly, and twice.

After what seemed liked an interminable period, but in reality was less than a minute, the door slowly opened, and there stood Miranda, frowning but not with a thunderously unappealing expression that Andy had expected.

“Andrea. You’re early.”

Andy nearly smiled, but was afraid that she would start crying instead. So she kept it simple. “Yes. Sorry. Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”

Miranda said nothing, but instead opened the door wider, and walked away. Well, that was as resounding an invitation as any. Andy gingerly stepped in, glad to finally get some feeling back in her face after the combined forces of the autumnal winds and her own petrifying fear.

She followed Miranda into the study, her boots knocking loudly into the hardwood floors, and Andy counted the steps like she thought a death row prisoner would: these last few moments of breathing, worldliness, and humanity.

There were times when Andy was under Miranda’s employ that she thought the editrix would simply be the death of her; the great irony, Andy supposed, was that Miranda may well be that, but for the exact opposite reasons Andy had foresaw.

Miranda sat in that extremely comfortable Stickley chair she had at the corner of her study. Andy rememebered vaguely that the chair had moved; the last time Andy was in this room, it had been in the opposite corner.

Miranda only raised her eyebrow, a prompt which Andy had never misread. So she swallowed her sanity, and opened her mouth. “I need your opinion.”

Miranda’s expression did not change. “Yes, I evinced as much from your text. By the way, while I understand that’s the form of communication that people use these days, I’m convinced that Runway should do a piece on the deplorable nature of it.”

Andy refused to be derailed. “Yes, I know. Sorry. But…I have a job offer,” she blurted instead, feeling the blood drain from her face.

Miranda’s eyebrow rose again. “Are congratulations in offer? Especially given the economic climate?”

Andy jammed her jaws together. “It’s in California.”

Miranda said nothing for a moment, but looked away at the vase of calla lilies on her desk. “I see.”

“I wasn’t actively looking, but they noticed some of my work apparently, and they called last week. And it all moved much faster than I ever expected. I’m not sure it’s even settled in. I mean, I don’t even think this is reality, it just seems so surreal.”

“You’re rambling, Andrea.”

Andy stiffened, but she would go down fighting, even if it were pointless. “I need your opinion.”

“You haven’t mentioned which establishment has offered you the opportunity. I’d think that, and the role they’ve specified should help you make the decision.”

Goddammit. Andy knew, she just knew that it would be too much to expect a scintilla of, well, anything. So if this was her fate, her humiliation, she might as well make it her last one at the hands of this woman. Andy squared her jaw, and she suddenly felt a small flicker of pleasure at the curveball she was about to throw. “The LA Times. Junior Editor of the City desk.”

Something untoward briefly flashed in Miranda’s eyes, and then the nonchalance was back as she picked at an nonexistent piece of lint on her skirt. “Well. That’s certainly a step up. What ever did you need my opinion for?”

Andy didn’t know how sky divers felt – she had a fear of heights – and she didn’t know if this was what hari kari felt like, but she was sure the ground was going to split open and ruin Miranda’s perfect wooden floors, and swallow up Andy in one big gulp.

Instead, Andy took one tiny step closer to the Stickley. “Tell me not to go, and I won’t.”

Miranda’s head whipped up to meet to Andy’s eyes. “Why would I tell you to stay, Andrea?”

“For the same reason I’m asking you to. For the same reason that no matter how many of your events I attend, the only way I can remember anyone else there is if they gave me their business card. For the same reason that you invite me, someone who could be nothing more than a failed experiment, to the most select parties in the city.”

Miranda said nothing, but stared at Andy for so long that the young woman was sure Miranda was only thinking about where to dump the body.

Miranda’s tone was silky. “Do you doubt my ability to be generous?”

Andy stepped off the cliff, into the void. “I’m saying I care. And I’m asking whether you do.” The fact that Andy had to spell everything out infuriated her, but she knew better than to expect Miranda to connect the dots of the larger picture given that Miranda seemingly wanted to continue whatever endless game they were playing. But Andy had run out of time.

Miranda jaw moved slightly, as if she were buying time. “Helena must be thrilled.”

“She doesn’t know.”

“About the job, or about…?”

Andy clenched her jaw. “Either. Both.”

Miranda narrowed her eyes. “So she’s a second choice?”

Andy gulped. “I didn’t say that I feel good about doing this, but, in a way, it’s honest. It’s what I’ve been feeling, and I needed to say it.”

Miranda sniffed but it was without rancor. “I will never understand why people feel that ‘being honest’ is an excuse for inflicting needless damage.”

Andy had had enough. She took another infinitesimal step closer to Miranda. “Miranda. Just tell me.”

Miranda unexpectedly rose, uncoiling herself from the chair, and approached Andy with a force that left the younger woman breathless. Almost as if she couldn’t help herself, Miranda raised her fingers to cup Andy’s jaw, leaving the brunette slack-jawed in shock.

Miranda smiled, and it wasn’t entirely kind. “You are beautiful, and young, and talented. The very same traits that drew me to you were what enchanted Helena as well. But I know where this will go; at first, the sense of hope will seem infinite, as if the past were not prelude, and then reality would slither in, like water between crevices.”

Miranda dropped her hand, and took a step sideways, turning away from Andy. “You have a future, Andrea, which should remain untainted by an all-consuming love affair, whomever that be with. You only have a few years to truly make your mark before the plateauing begins. You should remain unhindered. Untethered.”

Miranda leaned her hands against her massive desk, as if all the energy had suddenly seeped out of her, as if the weight of releasing her own desires into the air had rendered her weak.

Andy was immobile for a few moments, unable to let it all sink it. Her voice shook, and no matter how much she swallowed against the lump in her throat, the quaver remained. “I think that’s the nicest way I’ve ever been dumped.”

The fury and, to a certain extent, the humiliation of being rebuffed sank like a stone within Andy. But she wouldn’t regret her courage, her need for veracity; just because the very same things that made her professional buoyant didn’t translate into the same results in her personal life were no reason for self-flagellation.

Andy cleared her throat. “You may be absolutely right in everything you said, Miranda, but you’re still a coward.”

Miranda breathed deeply, ready to lash out, to unleash her anger, the bubbling injustice that was crawling through her esophagus, but she tamped down on the acidity at the base of her throat through sheer force of will. Instead she closed her eyes, clenched her jaw, and breathed strongly through her nose.

In the distance, she heard the sounds of Andrea’s boots as they walked away, the noise filtering away like a receding threat that had tried to breach Miranda.

Miranda opened her eyes, looked down at the hands on her desk, and noticed that they were shaking ever so slightly. She curled them into fists, and pushed away from the table.

She was certain that this too would pass.


	11. The Palest Light Has Come to Wake You

_**A Few Months Later, in Los Angeles** _

California’s sunshine can often be blinding; on the days that the rays cut through the engulfing fog, that is.

“Are you happy here?” Helena asks her, a month into the move.

Andy looks at her lover, who is preparing dinner, and smiles. “Yes. No need to look like the Michelin Man in the winter here.”

Helena pauses with her knife poised above a hapless carrot, and smiles. “When I moved to the US, it took me a good six months not to hate everything. I missed everything about the UK: the smells, the curry, the Mars bars, the pubs, the vomit on the streets on Friday nights. Everything.”

Andy sips her wine, and nods. They are both foreigners in Los Angeles, but they are both trying.

Lily visits, and they have a grand time at the beach.

“God, I can’t believe it’s just like the movies!”

Andy grins, as they both lie in their bikinis on towels, with a large umbrella shading them from the worst of the sun. “So you think you’ll move?”

“Andy, baby, I love you, but this is a vacation spot.”

“What does that mean?”

“New York is home now.”

“Yea, I thought that, too.”

“You just want to corrupt every East Coaster with your sun, sea, and sandy ways!”

Andy grins. “You know me too well, Lils.”

Lilly sighs in bliss, and leans back against the small pillow on her blanket. “This is the life.”

“So, how are things? I mean, really?”

“Well, of course, Doug and I miss you loads. Every time we go out, we whine that you’re not there. You should move back.”

Andy raises an eyebrow. “Right, because you’re not trying to woo me with your windy, worldly, New England ways.”

“Touche, baby. But, really, is this it? I mean, really? You? A California girl?”

“You gonna make me start singing Katy Perry now?”

“And Helena? This is, what, forever?”

“You don’t like her?”

“Of course, I like her. Who couldn’t? She’s gorg, posh, and good to you. I mean, she is good to you, right?”

“The best. Of course, we drive each other nuts sometimes…”

“So she isn’t perfect?”

“I think there’s a part of her that’s really scared of her wealth.”

“Wait, what do you mean?”

Andy sighed. “She got burned pretty badly by a couple of women who were mainly after her moolah. So…”

“Damn.”

“Actually, the funny thing is that I’ve realized I have no desire to be rich. I just want to be able to have a rainy day fund, and live.”

“Too much pressure?”

Andy snorted. “More like too much paranoia. But between that and never cleaning the tub drain, those are the main foibles. What about Mark?”

“It’s only been a couple of months, but I think this could actually work. At least for now. I’m not thinking beyond that.”

“Scared?”

“Hell yes. It’s New York, and everyone’s got a gazillion things to do, and a bajillion people to date. I mean, who has time to seriously date? It’s like f*cking Peter Pans left, right, and center.”

“Lils, he’s gotta know that you’re the best thing since sliced bread.”

Lily laughed. “I’ll have to remember that.”

Andy smiled. “And if he forgets, I can visit you, and tell him so.”

There were still times when Andy nearly blacked out when she had sex with Helena. This was one of those times.  
She was inhaling faster than her body could process the oxygen, and tears were leaking from the corners of her eyes as a reaction to overloaded sensory pleasure.

__________________________________

 

“Ssssh, darling, I’m right here,” Helena whispered, kissing Andy’s neck soothingly, running her hands gently over Andy’s flank, trying to calm her down.

Helena reached up, and unlocked the handcuffs, and Andy’s arms flopped back on to the mattress, her entire body insensate.

Helena smiled wickedly against Andy’s cheek as her lover regained her equilibrium. “So…A success?”

Andy chuckled, but it only came out a wheeze as her body continued to recover. “Raging.”

Helena laughed gently, and sighed in pleasure as she propped herself up on an elbow, watching her lover.

Andy finally opened her eyes, and looked askance at Helena. “Pretty pleased with yourself, aren’t you?”

Helena laughed again. “And why not? The proof of my gifts, as they say, is in the pudding.”

Andy wrinkled her nose. “You know, it’s only your posh accent that lets you get away with sounding both vulgar and incredibly smug at the same time.”

Helena blinked slowly. “You also forget my extraordinary charm, and devastating sexual prowess.”

Any snorted, and then rolled on top of her lover. “Allow me to provide some challenge to that prowess.”

Suddenly, the laughter disappeared from Helena’s mouth, and she carefully traced the line of Andy’s smile. “Are you glad you moved?”

Andy kissed Helena’s fingers as they ran across her lips. “Right now, I’m deliriously happy.”

Helena’s lips pulled upward faintly, but she still frowned. “And you don’t miss New York too much?”

Andy pulled back, and looked into Helena’s eyes. “Of course, there are somethings I miss. My friends, a great bagel…”

Helena rolled her eyes. “I keep telling you to try that shop on the corner of–”

“No matter what you say, Hel, it’s not a New York bagel.”

Helena arched an eyebrow. “You only lived there about a year, but you’ve become one of those insufferably arrogant New Yorkers.”

Andy smiled. “Well, you did ask.”

Helena ran her fingertips across Andy’s collarbone, and asked in a completely neutral tone. “So apart from the lack of pretentious bagels…”

Andy stopped smiling, and tilted her head to one side. “What are you really asking?”

Helena looked back up at her lover. “No regrets?”

Andy narrowed her eyes. Her lover, for all her brashness, had an underlying vulnerability that often knocked Andy sideways; the depth of Helena’s insecurities was shocking for a woman otherwise so outwardly confident. “Hel, I love you. You know that. And, now I think you should let me move this beyond the talking to the showing part.”

Helena rolled her eyes, but Andy kissed her, and they both chuckled into each other’s mouths. Andy whispered her fingertips down Helena’s thigh, and suddenly the air became once again charged.

Hours later, when sore muscles and dehydration gave way to sleep, Andy dreamed of white hair and even whiter silk scarves.


	12. Hard to Resist

**Current Time: Three Years Since Chapter 1**

It was absolutely true that Andy was sometimes blown away by how lovely Helena was. Andy had always thought it was especially creepy when people watched their lovers sleep, but it was rare that Andy woke up before Helena anyway.

So she took her chances when she could. She dug her arm out of the oceans of blankets, and gently traced Helena’s eyebrows, first the right one, and then the left one. Her fingers fluttered over skin, over uneven stretches, which only made Helena more alluring, and the hidden freckles, and wrinkles. Her lover was aging wonderfully, but it was deep-seated emotion the caused Andy to be fonder of Helena due to her imperfections.

Perfection was boring, intimidating, and pointless.

Not that Andy and Helena didn’t rattle each others’ carriages; Helena was still raw from the collective failure of her past relationships, and Andy felt guilt over not being able to give of herself as fully as she thought she should.

Helena sighed, and barely opened her eyes. “Mmmm…Why did you stop?”

Andy jerked her head towards her, having forgotten to complete her earlier journey of mapping Helena’s face and shoulders with her fingers.

Andy grinned. “Sorry, wool-gathering.”

Helena squished her pillow, and then leaned over in bed to kiss Andy’s cheek. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, gorgeous,” Andy whispered.

Helena smiled. She liked the sound of this conversation. “Takes one to know one.”

Andy inhaled, and leaned over to kiss Helena’s bare shoulder; in the early morning, they acknowledged their morning breath, and skipped their mouths.

Helena rolled over, dragging Andy with her. They looked at each other, and were still smiling, clearly very pleased with what they saw.

And then Andy bent to Helena again, kissing her clavicle, and slowly but surely, going lower.

Helena closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply, loving this precise moment of Saturday mornings spent on an ethereal bed. “Oh, yes,” she whispered to both of them.

“A very good morning indeed.”

____________________________________

Andy had managed to avoid New York for the past 2 years, with the exception of layovers at JFK or La Guardia, and another one-day trip for Lily’s birthday.

Every time, Andy was sure to wear some sort of large coat, hat, and sunglasses, as if she were avoiding the paparazzi. It had been interesting to explain this to Lily, given that the gallery organizer’s birthday was in July.

Lily had roller her eyes, and kept drinking. Yeah, even Andy had to agree that _that_ level of pathetic-ness deserved Lily’s response.

But, now, she had run out of excuses, and Helena had put her foot down.

“Andy, it’s Bette and Tina’s _wedding_! They are _finally_ getting hitched! They waited until it was fully legislated, and the everyone is going. I’d really, _really_ love it if you’d join me.”

Helena knew her well enough when to ask – After a dose of multiple orgasms, when Andy was most vulnerable, and felt most cherished.

Sometimes, Andy groused to herself, the familiarity espoused by relationships was completely unfair.

She wasn’t even completely lucid when she agreed, which just made the whole escapade _even_ more manipulative.

Helena couldn’t have picked a better moment to get her way, and the smile the British woman wore the next morning told Andy as much.

“So I’m going to book us both tickets. We leave Thursday, and maybe come back Wednesday?”

“Wednesday?? There’s no way – I, I need to be back on Monday for work, Hel.”

“C’mon, darling. Ask Marsh for a holiday, why don’t you,” Helen cajoled in her winning, British way.

Andy was far beyond pouting, she was seriously astonished. “There’s no _way_ he’s going to agree to my taking a vacation with a _week’s_ notice. Besides, you _know_ how busy we are right now. It would be _suicide_.”

Helena raised an eyebrow. Even though her time with Katherine was done, and she’d gone to prison for her, she was still a bloody Peabody; she hadn’t gotten her card-shark ways entirely out of her system. “Fifty bucks says he’ll say yes.”

Andy frowned; she was sometimes a sucker, but was trying to be better about falling for it. This time, though, seemed like everything was stacked in her favor. So rather than get into a protracted pissing contest, Andy acquiesced. It was time to get some of her own back.

She picked up her iPhone, and waved it in Helena’s direction. “Last chance to back out, loser.”

Helena grinned, and simply twiddled her fingers, directing Andy to continue.

Andy hit Marsh’s number. She didn’t expect him to pick up, but he did.

“Andy, what’s up?”

“Hey, Marsh, I know it’s early. An unexpected trip just came up, a friend’s wedding. Would you be okay with my taking the 13th, 14th, and 15th off? I’ll be in New York.”

There was a noticeable pause, and Andy knew he’d be pulling up his editorial calendar, looking at the stories, deadlines, and lede dates.

She could nearly smell the fifty-dollar bill, and smiled a bit wider. There was no _way_ he was going to say yes. Andy smirked; she so loved the rush of the win. Like when she pushed the “Send” button on her stories.

“Sure, I don’t see a problem.”

Andy nearly dropped her phone. “What??”

“You said 13th through the 15th, right?”

“Uh…Yea.”

“And you’d be back the 16th?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Works for me. Was that it?”

Andy gulped. She couldn’t believe it. “Yup.”

“Okay, see you here in a few minutes.”

“’Bye.”

She disconnected the line, but he’d already hung up.

The Brit’s face was expectant. “Well?”

“I guess I’m booking my tickets…”

Helena nearly cackled at her own genius, but held it in again. “No, let me. You can buy me drinks at Cubby Hole.”

Andy tried to grin, but wasn’t sure she succeeded. “Fifty bucks worth?”

Helena just grinned as she walked away.


	13. Disappear in Plain Sight

Andy gripped her martini glass like it was the only thing tethering her to the floor. She watched Helena’s LA crew, seemingly displaced in New York, yet their love for each other so clear it was like an additional color in the room.

There were about fifty people at their party in the St Regis, and even though Andy had only met Bette and Tina a couple of times when they visited LA, she saw the years-long adoration between the two of them.

Andy nearly smiled at Tina leaning over to whisper something to Alice, which made the radio host crack up with a full-body laugh. Kit had Bette in the corner, the two sisters bonding over a seemingly salacious topic if their inebriated giggling was any indication.

Helena was talking to Shane, and her lover looked over to Andy and raised her chin companionably. Andy tried to smile, but there was something bittersweet about the entire scene: As if she were a stranger, which she partly was, at this melee.

Everyone welcomed her affably enough, but Andy felt the distance all the same; this was Helena’s world, and there was so much history there, most of it before Andy’s time. These strangers, some of whom had been lovers at one time, surrounded her, celebrating together.

There was such momentous joy in the room that it almost suffocated her. There was indeed such kinship for the fact that the matriarchs of their ‘family’ were getting married. These friends seemed to be suffused with relief, resignation, and happiness that Bette and Tina were utterly and completely made for each other, and now, finally, they were making it official. Andy was somewhat amused that this pre-party, happening two days before the nuptials, was for a wedding that seemed like such a forgone conclusion.

Andy sighed, and realized that her moroseness was mostly her own damn fault; New York always made her edgy these days. She no longer enjoyed the frenetic air here; to her, the stench of Miranda was all around even when the editrix wasn’t present. She had followed the blogs religiously, and knew Miranda was on vacation with the twins in Nice.

Andy had been so relieved when she found that out; it made her visit somewhat easier, but it also brought a cloud, knowing that as much she didn’t want to see Miranda, she wouldn’t run into her either. She rubbed her forehead and thought about switching to water. But she knew she wouldn’t; sometimes getting drunk was the answer to existential angst.

Her phone rumbled, and she ignored it; she was on vacation. Then it vibrated again, and again, and again. She finally fished it out of her handbag, and realized that she had two missed calls from Lily. She frowned and unlocked the BlackBerry, and realized Lily had also sent her a message:

_OMG, Miranda’s resigned!! Check the NYT!!_

Andy blinked a few times, and shakily set her glass down on the bar. She was sure she was misreading the message, and held the phone with both hands, re-reading Lily’s message. And then, she quickly went to her browser, and going on auto-pilot pulled up the AP’s news wire.

And there it was: Breaking News: _Miranda Priestly, Editor of Runway, resigns from Elias-Clarke._

Her heart was in her throat, and she scrolled to read the story: The details were threadbare, but simply announced that the “legendary” editor had returned from vacation and handed in her notice.

Andy was holding her breath, still in disbelief, the merry sounds of the party around her receding until her phone’s screen became her whole world. She became light-headed and coughed to get enough air to her straining lungs.

None of this made sense, but she had no time to process the shock: Her phone lit up with her editor’s direct office line.

She accepted the call with shaking fingers, and put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

“Andy? Are you still in New York?” Her editor sounded very breathless, and completely unlike himself.

She gulped. “Yes.”

He sighed in relief. “Listen, have you heard? Miranda Priestly resigned a couple of hours ago.”

Her voice was utterly toneless as she realized that this was really happening. “Uh, I just found out, Marsh. Why?”

“I just got a call from her personal publicist, Regina, and she said that Miranda to give us an exclusive interview.”

Andy’s jaw dropped. “Oh, my God.”

But her editor barely heard her. “And she wants to give it to you. She won’t talk to anyone else.”

“What? Why me??”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. You worked for her, right? She probably wants a familiar face.”

“Marsh, I don’t kn–”

“Listen, Andy, you’ve got to do this. It will put us on the map. It’s a fucking exclusive, it’s going to crash our website. You have twelve hours. 10AM tomorrow at the Four Seasons. Does that work?”

“Marsh. Marsh, I’m not ready. I can’t–”

He wasn’t having any of it. “You’re ready, Andy. You know everything about her, you worked for her, you went to Paris with her. Listen, you’ve got to get your head on straight. This is going to be huge, okay?”

Andy tried nodding, not even realizing that her editor couldn’t see her. “Okay.”

He breathed in relief, sensing her coming back to herself. “Okay, listen, I’m going to call Regina and tell her it’s a go. Send me a draft of the questions in a couple of hours. It’s game on, Andy.”

He didn’t wait for her to respond, and Andy realized that he’d hung up. She pulled the phone away, and then came back to the world.

The party was still raging, and Helena had noticed her glassy demeanor, and was walking over to her. Andy’s hand holding her phone fell limply to her side, and she realized she wouldn’t be getting any sleep that night.

There was only thought hammering through her head: Miranda, what have you done?


	14. A Drug for Angles

Helena was once a smoker; the hardest thing she did everyday was not light a cigarette. Most days, it was easy, and then she’d have one too many gin and tonics. Bloody hell, her tongue felt like molten ice, and power surged through her veins like a fucking drug; Helena often suspected she constantly skirted the edge of alcoholism. And not only because of her British heritage.

Of course, with Peggy as a mother, she was driven by the extremely cliched angst of teenage rebellion.

There had been the many head girls (a term that always made her American friends titter; upon explanation from Alice on the cause of the mirth, Helena decided her friends were rather sophomoric), and there had also been embarrassments.

And Peggy could only be pushed so far before her liberal guilt met head-on the constant pressure of being a Peabody; in the end, the latter won.

______________________________________

Andy had explained the reason why she looked so thunderstruck, and hearing about Miranda’s resignation and subsequent demand for an interview certainly rocked Helena back on her heels.

But she pasted on an understanding smile, and sent Andy on her merry way to prepare for her big new assignment.

As she watched Andy walk away, Helena realized she needed air, and for a fleeting moment, she remembered Dusty.

_Helena sighed into Dusty’s shoulder, inhaling not only her lover’s unique smell but also the vanilla flowers outside of their home. The wind was a wonderful thing on an island, an instrument of communication, as it swept past various fields, carrying the scent of faraway places. Although, on an island, faraway was defined rather differently than London._

_Helena had never really believed in “Island Time” as anything other than a term given certain cultures by a foreign (and, to be utterly honest, by Caucasian tourists) hegemonic definition of “relaxation.”_

_She had spent enough time with hoi polloi (a term her ilk used in private, a term Helena grimaced at) to know that the curse of the middle class was its endless lust for wealth; any day now, each of them believed, I’d become a millionaire._

_Tahaa was a paradise of a sort, but even as her fingers traced Dusty’s form, she wondered why her thoughts so often went towards Los Angeles._

Helena shook herself out of her reverie, and was glad no one had noticed her woolgathering. Going back to her original impulse, she walked out on the courtyard attached to their party room.

And, of course, there she found Shane with a cigarette.

Shane shurgged half-guility, in that way she so perfectly did. “I’m trying to quit, y’know. But, fuck, it’s hard.”

Helena smiled. “I did. Once.”

“No shit. What’s your secret?”

Helena shook her head, and looked at Shane with raised eyebrows. “You just have to want to.”

Shane’s form slumped. “Fuck, Helena, it’s not that easy.”

Helena shrugged. “You know, I must have tried at least 50 times to quit. Then I visited a set of family, and they disapproved of a dissolute Peabody, and three days of no smoking later, I said: What the hell?”

Shane just looked at her. “And then?”

“And then, I went back to my normal life, sans one very unhealthy habit. I never realized what a prisoner I was; at some point, the rebellion had built bars around me.”

Shane nearly chuckled. “Damn, that was deep.”

Helena breathed deeply, and crossed her arms. “I know it sounds silly, but it was such a defining experience for me.”

Shane frowned, unused to Helena looking so vulnerable; it had been a long time since the Dylan escapde. “Everything okay?”

Helena looked up at the calmly neutral tone that Shane trotted out sometimes. “Yes. No. Yes. Shane!” Helena laughed because she had to, and because she realized that she’d gotten far too maudlin. Fucking gin and tonics, and their nostalgic claustrophobia.

Helena shook her head, and tried her best to exude calmness. “Yes, everything is fine.”

Shane titled her head, teasingly. “One more time, and I won’t believe you.”

Helena laughed, and looked towards the crowd, not really able to make out any faces. “Here, let me have one.”

“What?”

“A fag.”

Shane shook her head. “Helena, c’mon.”

Helena stepped towards her. “Oh, come on. It’s fine, just one.”

Shane stared at Helena for a moment, and saw things the Brit didn’t want anyone to see. Shane grabbed the pack from her jacket. “What the fuck, why not?”

Helena stepped closer still, and grabbed a cigaratte. “Exactly.”

________________________________

**The Next Morning**

 

“This is insane,” Lily breathed out in a rush as she hurried to meet Andy outside of the Four Seasons hotel.

Andy nodded hastily. “Did you bring it?”

Lily gave her a look, and then reached inside the brown paper bag, and pulled out a pack of Malboro Lights, then reached back in for the matches, a pack of Altoids, and travel-sized bottles of Patron Silver.

Andy pulled her friend towards a discreet corner, and goggled at the items. “Oh, Gawd, I’ve lost it, haven’t it?”

“Yes, yes, you have. Of all the shit we’ve pulled, this is the highlight. And that’s saying something.”

Andy reached for one of the bottles, and twisted the cap quickly. “Bottoms up,” she said, and threw the contents down her throat. “Argh!,” she gagged a moment later as she went through a full-body quiver of disgust. “Fuck!”

Lily just shook her head, twisting off a cap on her bottle, and motioned the bottle in a “cheers” fashion before downing it. A moment later she hacked out in a retching fashion. “Gah!! That’s awful!”

“Especially at 9:45 in the fucking morning,” Andy wholeheartedly agreed. “Quick, the cigs!”

They lit up, and then companionably leaned against the side of the hotel, puffing away like they were hyperventilating, barely tasting the cigarettes.

Andy looked over at Lily, both of them slightly glassy-eyed now, and started giggling. “Fuck, Lils.”

Lily smiled, and shook her head again. “Yea. Even by New York standards.”

Andy rubbed her forehead. “This is so fucked.”

The gallerist glanced over. “How did Helena react?”

Andy blew out a breath, and absentmindedly flicked the butt of her cigarette. “She was fine. Well, she seemed fine. She understood. But I don’t think she’s very happy with Marsh right now. Or with me.”

Lily took another drag. “You gonna be okay?”

Andy stared the street in front of them, teeming with well-heeled tourists and ubiqutous checkered yellow cabs. “I have no idea. I didn’t get much sleep, and this has to go well. Fuck. Miranda. Fuck.”

Lily blew out smoke, and then extinguished her cigarette. “Another?”

Andy shook her head, and then took one last draw, sucking for all that she was worth, trying to draw courage from the tobacco. “How do I look?”

“Like you took a fucking shot of tequila on the street,” Lily giggled.

Andy rolled her eyes, and dug out a bottle of perfume from her cavernous bag. She spritzed the air right in front of her, and then walked into it, and then repeated the motion multiple times. Lily raised her eyebrows in mirth.

“What? This is how the clackers do it,” Andy defended herself.

“Uh-huh,” Lily agreed companionably. She stepped closer to Andy, and straightened her jacket and collar, and then grasped her friend’s shoulders, looking firmly into Andy’s eyes. “Now, you go in there, and give ’em hell.”

Andy leaned in and kissed Lily’s cheek. “You’re the best.”

Lily nodded solemnly. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

Andy smiled. “We’ll do drinks later.”

Lilly rolled her eyes. “I’m free for lunch, for once. You’re buying.”

Andy laughed. “You got it.”

Lily motioned her head towards the hotel doors. Andy took one deep breath, popped three Altoids at once, and nodded firmly at Lily.

Without any other words, she turned, and marched towards the Four Seasons entrance.

__________________________

Andy stepped on the sixteenth floor, and realized that the room for the interview was at the very end of the corridor. She blew out a breath, and began walking speedily towards the appointed location, and promptly wrenched an ankle.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

She grimaced, and righted herself. It had been a long time since she’d combined tequila and cigarettes, and her walk was just a little wobbly. Of course, her five inch heels didn’t help matters any.

She leaned a hand against the corridor’s wall, and shook out her ankle, making sure there was no real damage. She took a deep breath, and tried to regain some semblance of control.

As she began walking, her heart, which had been pounding, moved right into her throat. Finally, she reached the door, took one last fortifying breath, and wondered why she felt like she was going into battle.

Maybe because she hadn’t seen Miranda in three years, and their last interaction had left Andy emotionally bloodied.

She shook her head violently, once, as if to clear the cobwebs, and rapped the door with her knuckles loudly.

There were faint sounds of movement behind the door, and then it opened.

And there stood Miranda, resplendent as always, in a purple ochre silk top and fitted black slacks.

Andy lost her breath, and just stared.

Miranda’s brow cleared, and there was the slightest smirk playing gently around her relaxed mouth. “Andrea,” she drawled, just like she always did. Miranda stepped back into the room slightly, and opened the door wider. “Won’t you come in?”


	15. But the Stillness is a Burn

The chair Miranda sat on was made of teak, Andy guessed. She thought any wood that expensive-looking, sturdy yet cradling, must be made of some exotic wood. Like teak. The stained finish made the wood sparkle but still showcased the underlying black strands of color that ran across the arms.

The nape of the chair curled around Miranda, and seemed to protect her from Andy’s questions, from Andy’s desperate piercingness. The fabric covering the cushioned seat and back was clearly made from raw silk, the rough and uneven pulls of fabric only making the inky blue material pop even further.

These were the details Andy noticed as a reporter, all the more so when it was an interview. Especially when it was with one of the world’s most photographed, cataloged, and imitated women.

The carpet was not cheap either, not made of the low-grade cotton and rayon fibers that were ubiqutous; they were Turkish rugs, long-worn but still vibrant. Oh, the stories they could tell.

The walls, too, for that matter, as Andy discreetly looked around: Eggshell and robin egg blue had never accented each other so boldly. Andy had always been a reporter, even when she wasn’t. Sometimes, when she slipped and did this gazing around friends, they found her supremely boring.

And as she tracked her way up the carpet, her eyes landed squarely, firmly, fleetingly on Miranda’s crossed ankles: The glimmering, magenta, patent leather Ferragamos looked sinful enough to lick.

And then the question happened. “Andrea, are you alright?”

Like a shot, she was back in her body and fully alert. “Yea. I mean, yes. I think millions of readers are _not_ going to be surprised that your favorite designer wasn’t Dior, but _of course_ it was Yves Saint Laurent.”

The slightest, tiniest pull of an eyebrow was all that betrayed Miranda’s surprise. “Of course…?’

The question was cutting and probing at the same time, and Andy wished to acquire that tone immediately. She glanced down at her notes, which were copious, and as the digital taperecorder kept recording, Andy acquiesced to Miranda’s unspoken wish to be the inquisitor. “Because the _New Look_ was successful enough to re-establish Paris as the epicenter of fashion after World War Two, but really, as a designer, he’s just too boring for you.”

Andy saw Miranda’s lips twitch, and she didn’t know whether it was in annoyance or in mirth; the past three years of not seeing Miranda had not made the older woman any less forthcoming. So Andy continued, because she needed to unravel Miranda even if it undid her. “And, Yves Saint Lauren _is_ much more your style; he was in one of this many heydays when you were young. He was glaringly brilliant and completely unstable. War, hospitalized against his will, medicated by the French army, succeeding Christian Dior at the age of twenty-one. C’mon, if you’d picked anyone else, he’d have rolled over in his grave.”

Were Miranda one to be wide-eyed, she would have been so at this point. As it was, she hadn’t blinked, and there was a slight sag around the corners of her mouth; this was Miranda, shocked. The silver-haired woman cleared her throat. “And that’s only his early life.”

Andy smiled, and it was the first genuine one all morning. “It’s more than that, though.”

“Really?” Miranda drawled, and Andy had to fight from squirming. “More than martyrdom?”

Andy narrowed her eyes; challenge accepted. “He was painfully shy and blightedly sensitive. But today’s women’s suits wouldn’t exist  if it weren’t for _Le Smoking Jacket_. He was the first man to put a black woman on the runway. The _Mondrian_  show redefined the role of art in fashion.”

By this time, Andy was on the edge of her seat, leaning forward, her notepad pushed precariously to the edge of her knees, and her pen caught in a vise-like grip between her fingers.

Miranda leaned back slowly into the plush concaves of her chair, and took a deep breath. “What are you trying to prove?”

Andy blinked, and was utterly surprised to feel the adrenalin raging through her system. She blew out a silent breath between her lips, and caught her notepad before it could fall. She pressed her lips together, and shook her head. “That I can do this,” she whispered.

Miranda gently entwined her fingers together, unused to the shift in the air between them. “I always knew you could do this.”

Andy still didn’t look up, and her eyelids twitched in agony. She had to get back in control. “What about that week when you disappeared with Bob Marley in the seventies?”

This time, Miranda’s lips quirked as she dipped her head. “You’ve done your research.”

Andy wanted to smile. “C’mon, Miranda, it’s the one question no one’s asked. But everyone has thousands of ideas.”

The teasing note in the brunette’s voice had Miranda leaning back further in her chair, the words serving to make her feel laconic and secure. “And you want me to tell you.”

Andy tilted her head to the side, and blinked slowly. “I think you want to tell me.”

_________________________________________

_**Meanwhile, elsewhere…** _

“So what is this tradition?” Helena asked, cursing that there were evermore to American pop culture than she would ever fully learn. This escapade (“Adventure, Helena! Not ‘escapade,’ God! Adventure!” she could hear Alice’s probable screech had she voiced her thought) was just the latest example. Sometimes she was forced to wonder if her lovely Los Angeles friends weren’t just a wee bit barking mad.

“It’s where all the bridesmaids have a bonding outing of getting shit-faced.”

Helena frowned, nearly disbelieving. “The _day_ before a wedding? We’d look like death warmed over! And, we’re not bridesmaids, Alice. There _are_ no bridesmaids.”

The blonde stopped walking ahead of Helena, and whirled around. “Well, if they _had_ bridesmaids and weren’t going all Earth Mothers’ Blessed Day BS, then yea, we would be, Helena! So c’mon!”

The exasperated undertow in Alice’s words made Helena shake her head. She nearly smiled, but needed some cover of plausible deniability when she suspected she would later be vomiting in the streets of New York like any good British girl.  “I have a feeling I’m going to regret this, Alice.”

At that, Alice stopped steaming ahead of Helena, and turned out with an overly bright smile. “Ya better believe it!” The blonde draped her arm over her friend’s shoulder, and Helena goodnaturedly gave one last grumble before they made their way forward.

_________________________

“So, why did you resign from Runway?”

Miranda’s lips moved infinitesmally upward, and she glanced down at her exquistely bejeweled watch. “Not bad. Fifty minutes before you got to it.”

Andy said nothing, making sure not to change her placid features. But she was helpless to surpress an arch of her left eyebrow.

Miranda sighed, and looked away, glancing at the peaks and valleys of the Manhattan skyline. “I was angry. All the time. When I asked my father why he resigned from his Editorial position, he told me that it was time to quit; he was constantly furious about everything at work. So. I decided to heed his advice.”

Andy’s pen had dropped on to her pad, cushioned by her thumb. Of all the reasons, she had not expected Miranda to ever open the past up to. Quickly closing her lips, Andy looked down momentarily, mostly for effect, as she furiously debated which line of questioning to follow. A question of immediate relevance (“Why were you angry?”) versus the inquiry that threatened to shed light on a yawning blackness (“Did you admire your father?”).

In the end it wasn’t really much of a debate, and when Andrea spoke, the skin around Miranda’s eyes untightened and the frown between her eyes disappeared; the stillness of her expression was nearly enough to make Andy’s eyes tear up in sympathetic response.

But she just clenched her jaw, blinked the appearance of any wetness away, and waited for Miranda’s response.

_____________________________

_**Meanwhile, still elsewhere…** _

The 3 shot glasses lined up in a neat row seemed to smirk at her, as if they were aware of her imminent doom. “You sure about this, Alice?”

Alice rubbed her hands together in apparent glee as the bartender set down her own shots, and then he set 3 more in front of Shane. The blonde smiled widely. “Oh, yea, this is going to be good.”

Shane just looked at the bartender, and smiled. “We’ll need salt and limes.”

In another moment, Alice and Helena were licking the skin between her index finger and thumb.

“Ready?” Alice said as she looked to her left to see Helena’s nod, and to her right to see Shane’s shrug. “Okay, one, two, three!”

Shane just knocked the shot back like it was water, but the other 2 immediately jumped on their limes, squeezing every last drop of citrus juice from the wedge between their teeth.

“Gawd! That never gets easier!” Alice rasped out.

Helena still had her eyes tightly squeezed together, and shook her head. “Fucking tequila, Alice!”

By now Shane had her head in her hands, just watching her friends like they were a circus show.

Helena finally opened her eyes, and breathed out roughly. There were 2 more shots in front of her, a certain lassitude had begun to affect her. She grinned rakishly at Alice, who still had little shivers of revulsion running through her body as a delayed reaction. THe Brit nearly cackled. “Ready for more?”

________________________________

Miranda got up from her chair for the first time all morning, but it was not sudden; her body moved in slow installments, as if she didn’t want to startle Andy at all. She moved towards the window, and rested her hands on the sill, her whole body pushing against the wood. “I hated Sunday nights until I got to New York.”

Andy frowned even as her pen raced across the page. “Why Sundays?”

Miranda leaned forward harder, trying to push the window sill into the ground. “Dinner with the family at the same restaurant for nearly eighteen years.”

For the seeming umpteenth time, Andy’s fingers clenched around her pen. In a flash, she discreetly stopped the tape-recorder, and looked at Miranda’s back. They were both holding their breath as Miranda leaned her forehead against the coolness of the window pane.

“Caroline and Cassidy are older now, wiser than I ever was,” Miranda said in a very soft voice. She turned her head and looked back at Andy. “And I was angry when I was at work. All the time.”

Andy lips parted on a silent breath. Time for the easy question: “Why were you angry?”

Miranda nearly grimaced, and pushed away from the window. “My treatises on the general incompetence of my staff are famous, I know. But, even beyond the gossip, I had reached a point when I was furious someone couldn’t see the sub-par quality of their work.”

She was pacing now, and Andy tracked her movements like a hawk.

Miranda paused for a moment. “It was wretched. For me, for my staff, no doubt, and there was no joy. Every issue I had ever put to bed, and then seen in print, there was that deep breath. That inhalation of true accomplishment, of releasing art of the highest quality,” she said in a rush, feeling the nostalgia overwhelm her intellect.

Andy’s lower lip slackened in surprise; she had never hear Miranda raise her voice in the slightest, or express words with such glowing curves.

Miranda seemed to come back to herself, and shook her head. “The papers had a field day for the past few months; the pajeroation of my nicknames was…”

The grand dame of the fashion press trailed off, her eyes glazed over momentarily, and Andy would have given nearly anything to know what Miranda was thinking in that exact moment.

“But beyond work, and the girls even, I was tired of…constraints,” Miranda breathed, with her eyes ticking upward to catch Andrea’s.

The reporter’s breath caught, and she was sure she felt the floor beneath her feet sliding like miniature waves.

But all was still in the room until Miranda walked gently, slowly, purposefully to stand inches away. The former editor looked down at Andrea, and her throat bobbed up and down even as her breathing increased.

Miranda pushed her right hand infinitesmally in front of the rest of her body.

Andy, who had been caught in a deadly staring contest, looked down at the movement, and observed the details of Miranda’s dominant hand: the pale blue of the veins, the lightly crinkled skin around them, and the prominent protrusion of the wrist bone. She looked at the topography of Miranda’s hand, cataloging everything.

And then, ever so slowly, Andy leaned forward, and gently pulled Miranda’s barely outstretched hand towards her lips, and kissed the skin.


	16. Into the Blue

Andy was hunched over her laptop in her hotel room. She had commandeered one of the hotel’s Business Lounge printers, and there were pages littered around her. There were plenty of notes in the margins, and entire paragraphs crossed over. The coffee had gone cold, and her jaw was working nonstop on chewing gum. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, except for every other “t” she typed, causing a idiosyncratic pause because everyone had their own rhythm. She stopped for a moment, and read over the latest page. She hit the “Print” button, and rocked back and forth slightly waiting for the result. She leaned over and grabbed the sheet before it had even fully rolled out of the printer. The pencil was in her hand, and again phrases and sentences were entirely beheaded.

It was only 3PM that very day. She had left Miranda an hour ago.

__________________________

“Maybe I should have thought through this plan better.”

“Ya think?” Shane huffed as she supported most of Helena’s weight.

Alice bit her lip, and looked worriedly at the rather drunk British woman currently lolling on Shane’s shoulder.

“Aaaaaaalice, I’m fine. Stop mothering,” Helena said in a joyously slurred rush, not quite able to hide the hiccup at the end.

Alice frowned. “Alright, that’s it, we’re catching a cab back to the hotel.”

“Thank fucking Christ,” Shane whispered even as Helena childishly whined in protest against ending their bar-hopping.

_______________________

“What happened?” Andy asked when she opened the room door and saw a nearly-asleep Helena sagging dramatically, held up valiantly by Alice and Shane.

Alice tried to smile, but it came out pained. She maneuvered her charge inside as quickly as possible. “Hey, funny you should ask. We got your girlfriend drunk.”

Shane squeezed her lips together, and shrugged apologetically at Andy, which cut through a lot of the young woman’s incredulity that still shined through her tone. “Okay…Why…?”

And to that, Alice had no easy response.

________________________

Andy drew a gentle finger across Helena’s brow, doing her best not to disturb her lover, who was sleeping off her adventurous outing with her friends. She had no idea that Alice had been planning to kidnap her lover and take her out for a bender at the very same time Andy had been interviewing Miranda; Helena had told her that she’d been planning a quiet morning ahead of Bette and Tina’s wedding tomorrow.

Alice’s explanation after the fact had been hazy and cryptic.

“She needed a distraction,” the blonde had said, and then after ensuring Helena was comfortable in their bed, she and Shane had beat a quick retreat. But not before Alice looked around, had seen all the scattered pages and notes of Andy’s developing story, and had glared at Andy.

Now, alone with her sleeping lover, Andy sighed, closed her eyes, and kissed the apple of Helena’s cheek, whispering her lips over the soft skin. She felt like crying and didn’t know why, but she inhaled her lover’s smell, and even with the redolent smell of tequila, Andy kept her eyes closed for a long moment. Then she went back to writing.

_______________________

By the time she had finished, another three hours had passed, and the sun was beginning to set in New York. She was sweating under her arms even as she finished editing the piece, and printed the final copy. She pressed send on the document in her e-mail, and off it went to her editor for his approval. Andy felt drained and melancholic, but she looked over at Helena, still slumbering, and tried to smile. She needed a shower before delivering the article in her hand.

_______________________

“You figured it out,” Miranda said, standing regally in her study.

Andy took a deep and desolate breath, not her first attempt at keeping her temper in check in the past hour. “Yes. After I finished writing it. I nearly burnt this,” she said, waving the sheaf of paper in hand around.

“But you didn’t.”

“Since you were stupid enough to pull your little stunt, I’m returning the favor, and letting it go to press.”

Miranda said nothing, but she swallowed against a dry throat all the same.

The journalist shook her head, and clenched her free hand into a very tight fist until her short nails were biting into her palm. “You knew what this meant, didn’t you? That it was either interviewing you or being with you,” Andy said as she thrust the the papers at Miranda.

Miranda still refused to acknowledge the charge made against her, because there was no denying it, but the implied violence in Andrea’s gesture startled her, and she took a full step back even as she belatedly caught the article, and looked down to the pages.

The Chopin continued playing even as Miranda sat automatically behind her desk, pulled her signature Mont Blanc out of its holder, and uncapped the pen.

“It’s already gone to press, Miranda,” was all Andrea said then, a smile unsuccessfully fighting past the towering anger inside the journalist.

Miranda looked up, but did not purse her lips; she couldn’t help it if she went into autopilot when she read anything. She went back to the article, and this time, let the pen dangle uselessly between her fingers. When she finished, she sighed silently, and looked over her the top of her glasses at Andrea.

The journalist was sitting across from her, knees crossed with an arm across the sofa, fist still clenched, and doing all she could to keep a tight lid on her emotions. The time for temper would come, but Andrea would not be the first to talk.

“Yes,” Miranda said, took off her glasses, and puts it on her desk. The word was soft, full, and deadly inside the walls of her study.

Andrea blinked, and repeats her earlier line. “You knew, and you let me walk right into the trap.”

“I wanted you to have the choice.”

“It wasn’t a choice,” Andrea said, unable to hide the fury anymore. “It’s not a choice when I didn’t even know there was a choice! People’s lives aren’t a game, Miranda. My life is not a fucking game.”

Miranda tensed for a moment. “I thought you had made your decision when you accepted.”

At that, Andrea rose to her feet in one rushing motion, unable to sit still any longer. Her height was her strength and she bore down. “Oh, so let me get this straight. You realized you had feelings, so what did you do? Just come out straight, and tell me? No. No, no, no,” Andrea nearly smiled, entirely feral, as she continued. “You offered me the interview of the year. And if I did it, I’m professionally made. But we could never be together because what sort of reputation can I have after that? And when I accepted, without knowing what psychotic head games you were playing, you go ahead and tell me how you feel anyhow. During the damn interview!”

Andrea’s laugh was dry and jagged, but the steam kept coming. “Of course, befitting your inexplicably enigmatic stature. How perfect! And, after I kiss your hand, you send me toddling off to write, don’t you?” Andrea shook her head. “Congratulations, you’ve outdone yourself, Miranda. What the hell were you thinking? Is this revenge? For Paris?”

Miranda nearly frowns. “Of course not, Andrea. I can’t believe you would even–”

“Are you really going to go there, Miranda? Pretending that you’re now somehow rational? Yes, so very rational. Really?? I’m this close to wringing your neck!”

Miranda had lost all patience. “Oh, please, only a simpleton would have walked into that interview without looking at the angles, and–”

“Oh, this is my fault?? Oh, no, it’s not; you’re the sociopath who has to play puppet master with me. And I’m not a damn plaything, Miranda! I’m not one of the idiots at Runway.”

The ice began to form inside Miranda; she could no longer deny how this was going to end. “I offered you everything I could, and when you agreed to do the interview, I thought I knew where you stood.”

“If you really believed that, then why tell me how you felt? Why all the prose about restrictions, and wanting more? What sort of person does that?”

Miranda did not look away, but her eyes darkened to some deep blue. “I couldn’t…,” she said and trailed off.

Andrea shook her head, and could not figure out this woman. “I didn’t even know there was a choice,” she whispered but Miranda heard her anyhow.

“Andrea…”

“No. I can’t. This is horrible. So fucking horrible. I’m getting my front page article, the biggest story of the year, and it’s well written, succinct, smart, and so good, and all I can feel is this swirling fucking pit of misery.” Andrea looked helplessly at the other woman, and there was so much sadness and fear in the room.

But there was no regret here, because Miranda could not change who she was, and could not apologize for her actions. She would always need control and machinations and smoke and mirrors to transmute her emotions.

Andrea sagged where she stood. She had so much more invective to hurl at Miranda, and she knew that she would regret not taking the opportunity to pierce the other woman as she had been. But Andrea’s better judgment went silent, smothered by the last vestiges of a fire that had burned for so long; she walked the few steps to stand in front of Miranda, and looked her in the eye. She looked down and gently held each of Miranda’s hands in her own, marveling over the delicate fingers even as she rubbed her thumb over the back of Miranda’s hand.

Miranda thought she would faint, even as she memorized everything about Andrea in front of her, so close to her, right in front of her. She didn’t even breathe until she was in danger of passing out. The light of the study shined everywhere, and highlighted cheekbones, eyebrows, the tip of a nose, the philitrum, chin, lashes, ears, lips, lips, lips.

The silence was deafening but necessary, and Miranda saw no other way out. She had started this, she had made the mistake. She could fix this, and clenched her jaw for an interminable moment. She knew what she had to say. “Then we should kill this. Now.”

Andrea swallowed and closed her eyes for a moment, and then she leaned her forward, brushing her lips against Miranda’s cheek. She was careful to ensure that she made lingering contact with that smooth, smooth skin. They were both paused and poised in this gorgeous tableau of regret, misery, and inevitability, but she prayed that she would always be able to recall everything about this moment.

They both inhaled deeply at the same moment, and then Andrea said, “Consider it dead.”

She pulled away, turned, and walked out of Miranda’s house without looking back.


	17. In All the Familiar Places

Andy quietly shut the hotel door behind her, walked across the suite, and stopped to lean in the doorway of the bedroom to just pause for a moment and watch her sleeping lover. After too many moments of quietude, she eased back into the bed, not wanting to wake Helena. Andy hoped her lover wouldn’t wake up with a helluva hangover; those ibuprofens the Brit had taken before passing out should stave off the worst it. Andy hoped.

It was true that after her showdown with Miranda, she wanted to curl up in this hotel room’s bathroom with her iPod and maybe some super sad songs (Lady Day could always deliver), but now she saw Helena snoring ever so softly (as she did whenever she got smashed), and Andy’s lips couldn’t help curving. Even as her heart hurt in places, there were those other places that pushed away the enduring sadness. And now she was pulled to tame those errant curls that fell over Helena’s forehead.

Andy leaned over, and ghosted her lips near her lover’s ear, wanting to cry for so many reasons. But instead she leaned her forehead gently against Helena’s, and just stayed there with her eyes closed.

If someone had asked her whether it were possible that she could love two people at once, Andy may have said, once upon a time, yes. But now she was older and wiser, and she wanted to try giving herself only to the one who gave back to her. She kissed the curve of Helena’s nose gently, and the got up to (quietly) order some room service. Whenever she woke, Helena would need tea and toast.

___________________________

In the shower, Andy cried; she didn’t fight it. It wasn’t as if she didn’t love Helena fully, but Andy couldn’t deny that a small part of her brain had a locker named ‘Miranda’ on it, and she opened it now and then to reminisce or maybe even hope. Was that unfair? Probably not; Helena had her own past loves that she never fully, utterly relinquished. One night, nearly two years ago, when the LA gang had been out at Hit Club, Alice had tipsily slurred the whole _Dylan Moreland_ saga out to Andy while Tasha had looked on. Suddenly, Andrea had understood so much more, and she knew, even after broaching the topic with Helena weeks after that night, that Helena would never, _ever_ forgive Dylan. But a part of her wouldn’t stop loving Dylan either.

Ultimately, Andy had felt far less guilty about her own locker; if Helena could hold on to parts of Dylan, maybe she could hold on to Miranda. None of that had to impinge on their love for each other; there was room for each of their pasts in their present.

But today, in this steamy bathroom, with Andy’s tears slowing, washed away by the hot spray of water, she knew she had to let go. It was necessary, it was time, it was inevitable. Helena could have her own muted yearning for Dylan, and this relationship could be a tad one-sided in that regard; Andy had found an imperfect, aching, rewarding, stimulating love affair with Helena and that was all she needed when it came to her own heart.

Miranda had always been alluring in theory: Her attention to detail, her frenetic schedule, her sense of elan, her uncompromising zeal for artistic perfection,  her untethered ambition, her acerbic and oft malicious swipes, her vagaries of generosity, and her potency of fleeting vulnerability. All of these became a mes when combined in reality. In her little locker, Andy had entertained illusions that she would be the one who could accept all of these traits, could even see the need for them, and could celebrate or channel them as necessary. But it had been a delusion of grandeur; in the most pivotal of moments, Miranda had not seen Andrea as an equal, had not allowed the concept of “them” to hatch. Any possibility of what they could have been together had been aborted completely, bloodily, and with certitude.

The locker had to be burned, and Andy turned her face into the spray one last time.

___________________________

“Hey, sleepyhead,” she whispered, smiling at how Helena groaned and curled further within the sheets.

“Oh, God. I’m going to die,” Helena rasped out, squishing her lids together and smacking her dry lips together.

Andy chuckled. “Nope, not today. Look what I got you…”

Helena blearily popped one eye open, blinking multiple times to get it fully open past the mascara that seemed to fuse her lashes together. Only to see a steaming cup of tea in front of her. Her eyebrows rose with hope. “Earl Grey?” she croaked piteously.

“Yup. Only the best for my girl,” Andy whispered.

Helena hauled herself up a little, and immediately reached for the cup, taking a long, blissful sip. “Have I told you how much I love you?”

“A couple of days ago, if I recall,” she cheekily pointed out.

Helena smiled, and lifted her chin to beckon her lover closer. Andy smiled, leaned, and quickly pecked Helena on her lips.

“Thank you. And I love you.”

“You’re welcome. Now, come on. Sip on that, then there’s more tea, and some toast. With that disgusting marmalade you love.”

“Are you trying to spoil me before you let me have it?”

Andy turned back from the room service tray. “What?”

Helena frowned even as she took another slurping sip, and then grimaced slightly at her own indelicacy. “You’re not upset?”

Andy’s eyebrows rose. “That you went out and had fun with Alice and Shane? Nah, everyone needs to cut loose in New York. That’s what this city was made for. Well, that, and exorbitant rents.”

“Andy…”

But Andy would only come closer to Helena, and lean over her lover, careful not to spill the tea Helena was holding. “In case you’ve forgotten, I love you too. And I’m grateful, more than I can say.”

“Grateful?”

“For understanding that I needed to write this story, and that it took time away from a grand weekend that was supposed to be about Bette and Tina’s wedding, about us hanging out together with your posse at this big reunion.”

Helena took yet another sip. “You don’t have to–”

Andy stared back, and let her eyes do the talking. “Yes, I do. Thank you.”

Helena stared back, suddenly softening. “You’re welcome,” she whispered.

Now the smile was back, and Andy went in for another kiss, a slightly longer one. “Now. Tea, toast, and then you need to brush your teeth. And then shower, and then get ready for the wedding.”

Helena groaned. “Can’t I just do the first three, and then we can spend the rest of the day in bed?”

Andy got up with gusto. “Nope! C’mon, lazy bones, you’ve got another half an hour to lounge, and then it’s off to the races!”

“Hmph…Hey, wait, has the story posted?”

Andy didn’t turn around from spreading the very bitter orange marmalade on Helena’s toast, but her shoulders did tense a little. “Yup, about a couple of hours ago.”

Helena said nothing for a moment, and then looked at her lover. “Can I read it?”

Andy reached for the print-out, and walked back to Helena. She wanted to smile. “Of course. I need you to be honest, and tell me what you really think, okay? Marsh loved it, but I’m not entirely sure he isn’t still reeling from the catch.”

“Well, it _is_ the story of the year, darling,” Helena said even as she took the sheaf of paper.

“The year is young, who knows what else could happen?”

Helena glanced down. “Oh, very nice title.”

Andy smiled, and there was no sadness in that curve. Helena looked back up, set her tea cup on the bedside table, and patted the bed. “Read it with me?”

Andy’s smile twisted even as she crawled in beside her lover as Helena reached for her reading glasses. “Have I told you how sexy those are?”

Helena raised an eyebrow and let her lips twitch. “You might have said once or twice.”

Andy leaned in for another quick kiss. “Sex on a stick.”

The eyebrow remained raised even as her lips broke into a full smile. “And I suppose I’m the stick?”

“Yep.”

Helena shook her head, and turned her attention back to the article. “Really good title.”

Andy rested her head on her lover’s shoulder, and glanced down at the paper, and said softly, “Yeah.”

And, together, they looked at it: **“ _Après Moi, Le Déluge_.”**

“Very fitting. Has she read it yet?”

“Yeah, I gave her a copy.”

“And she liked it?”

“Didn’t have much of a choice; it had already gone to press.”

“Smart girl.”

“Sometimes.”

“Now, hush, and let me read.”

And, to that, Andy had nothing to say but she reached for Helena’s hand, and held on.

_______________________

“Well?”

“I didn’t know about the Bob Marley thing. And, of course, I think she told me about the YSL thing once.”

Andy smirked. “Ah, yes, just when I forgot that you two were lovers.”

Helena snorted. “It wasn’t for that long, darling.”

“We’ve never really talked about that, y’know.”

Helena turned a little, and looked over her glasses. “I thought you didn’t really want to discuss it.”

“What? Your mad, passionate romp with Miranda?”

“That’s a very generous reading of the situation, Andy.”

Now it was Andy’s turn to raise her eyebrow. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“I don’t mind talking about it. I wasn’t in a very good place afterwards though. She has a way of leaving you…”

“Bereft?”

“Broken.”

Andy inhaled sharply. “If it’s painful, then I’d rather we didn’t.”

“It was painful, Andy. Past tense. Gobs and gobs of therapy helped. But ultimately, it just took time.”

Andy said nothing, but traced the veins on the back of Helena’s hand. “You need to get changed. I have to put on my make up and my dress”

Helena just looked at her for a moment. “Yes. I think the article is brilliant. You’re extremely, obnoxiously talented. And I’m very, very proud of you. A Pulitzer-level tour de force.”

Andy blushed. “It may have been that if Miranda had edited it, but then it would no longer have been true.”

Helena laughed. “Perhaps,” she said and tossed the article on her bedside table next to her now cold Earl Grey. She turned to Andy, and gently bore them down into the giving and luxurious sheets, saying nothing, but resting her forehead against her lover’s. She turned so that their noses fit against each other, and cherished the full body contact. There was no sound in the room other than the air conditioner clicking in and out.

They remained that way, eyes shut, fingers entwined as they gently breathed each other in.

_________________________

The wedding, of course, was absolutely joyful. The gang sat in the front row, and their smiles were wide enough to break their faces. All of them, even Shane, teared up during the vows. The brides, Bette in Jil Sander and Tina in McQueen, were breathtaking and their make up remained flawless even as they choked up during their brief yet stirring speeches to each other. The ceremony had no officiant; it was modern, telling, and emblematic of the two women. Andy held Helena’s hand tightly throughout.

The speeches were the time to cut loose. Peggy Peabody went first, and the journalist from the _Weddings & Vows_ section of the New York Times definitely had his pick of quotes from her speech alone. She began with, “Well, this is a great day for all of us to see these two accomplished, brilliant, and beautiful women join their lives together in front of so many friends and family. Now, if you’ll allow me a moment of personal reflection, I met Bette so many years ago when she waylaid me at a small hotel in Santa Barbara to petition for her gallery. And, well, that night was epic, what with experiencing the Stendahl syndrome, which is why it’s always key to keep a jug of water on hand.”

The audience laughed affably enough, and Helena looked over at Kit with a smile in her eyes. Peggy continued,”Now this may seem _detrop_ , but in the first few years of knowing Bette, I did wish that she would end up with my dear daughter, Helena. I thought they would make a stunning and fiery match.”

At this, all of the LA gang either choked on their wine or ended up coughing vigorously in shock. Only Andy managed to keep her composure as she handed Helena a napkin to wipe the very good white wine from her chin. Andy leaned over and hissed, “Your mom does know that you were with _Tina_ , right?”

Helena’s jaw locked so hard, Andy thought she might shatter her molars even as she nodded. Alice, Shane, Tasha, Max and Kit were agog with horror, while Bette and Tina smiled at each other, rolling their eyes even as they laughed.

“But,” Peggy continued, “I have since had the incomparable joy of getting to know Tina so well, and I’m utterly ebullient in saying that Bette and her are an infinitely better match. Indeed, I would say, a perfect match.”

Helena nearly put her head in her hands, and Kit leaned over. “Your momma is one helluva show.”

Helena silently groaned even as Alice whispered from across the table. “Yeah, and nice save too.”

“Now as Thoreau said,” Peggy continued unbowed, “This world is a but a canvas to our imagination. And today, this evening, this ceremony, this celebration is a spectacular canvas, uniting love, in all of its hard work, robustness, and glory. For we raise our spirits and our wishes for the voyage ahead, that Bette and Tina and their most perfect daughter, Angelica, will embark upon with renewed gusto and unencumbered joy. For the road maybe long and winding, but the destination will be as dazzling as the journey. Bette, Tina, Angelica, it has been one of the greatest honors of my life to be your friend, and to be here today to bestow whatever wisdom I have gleaned, so let me say this: Never give up, never stop talking to each other, never stop loving your individual selves, and never stop celebrating who you are together. I ask you all to raise your glasses to this most most adoring, exceptional, and luminous couple. To Bette and Tina!”

As one, the assembled guests rose, and the noise was deafening as they echoed the couples’ names, clinked glasses, drank, and applauded all in one long and seemingly radiant breath.

_________________

The dancing that followed dinner was a bacchanalian triumph. With a soundtrack of Pharrell, Kylie, Gaga, the Jackson 5, and old-school Madonna, it couldn’t have been otherwise.

Everyone was sweaty and exhilarated and drunk.

Andy took a break from all the action and walked to the restrooms, thankful for a reprieve. It was on nights like these that she felt she couldn’t party like the rapscallion she had been in her early twenties. As she made her way back to the revelries, she spied the gifts table and the many multicolored packages that sat gaily upon its surface. One gift, however, loomed above all others, gigantic in its portions. With curiosity, Andy opened the card and read it: _“To Bette & Tina, On the coruscating occasion of your union, I hope you’ll enjoy this espresso maker. For the long nights of laughter, for the mornings filled with promise, and for the lazy afternoons of repose, I hope this is a perfect accompaniment. Yours, Miranda Priestly.”_

Of course. Of course, she had known that Bette and Miranda had gotten to know each other well once Bette and Tina had moved to New York. Of course, Miranda would have known that Andy and Helena would have been at the wedding. Of course, Miranda would find a way to gloss over of her lack of attendance with an appropriately outsized gift.

Andy ran her fingers over Miranda’s sharp yet languid script, feeling the weight of the words under the whorls of her fingertips. She read the note once more and then again, slowly and with intent. Gently, she let the note fold back, and laid her hand softly on the monstrously sized package. It was the perfect gift.

And then Andy walked away, towards the heart of the party and the rest of her life.

 

 

 

 

— FIN!


End file.
